ill- 



11 



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i¥W 




A VIKING BOLD. 



EISTOEICAL SERIES— BOOK IV PART I 



STORIES 



OF THE OLDEN^ TIME 



COMPILED AXD ARRANGED 

By JAMES ^JOHONjS^OT 



^ 



■j-^ 



•2- 




XEW YORK 

U . A P P L E T X A X D C il P A N Y 

1889 






THE LIBEAET 
or CQNGEEM 

WASHINGTOir 



Copyright, 1889, 
By D. APPI.ETON AND COMPANY. 



V 



PEEFACE 



When we go back to the early history of any people, 
we find that fact and fiction are strangely blended, and 
that the stories told are largely made up of traditions 
distorted and exaggerated by imagination and time. The 
myth, however, is valuable as representing the first steps 
of a nation in the evolution of if s literature from a barbaric 
state, and as indicating special national characteristics. 

The myths of Greece, for example, are chiefly de- 
rived from the traditions extant when the alphabet was 
invented, and are preserved in the poetic stories of 
Homer and Yirgil. Combined, they make that mytholo- 
gy which grew up in Greece, and which now so largely 
permeates the literature of every civilized language. 

The first stories given in this book are myths. They 
stand first in the order of precedence because they stand 
first in the order of time. 

The myths are followed by a few parables and fables, 
forms of stories which from the earliest times have been 
used to apply some well-established principle of morals 
to practical conduct. 

J^ext follow legends, where we are called upon to sep- 
arate the probable from the improbable, the true from 
the false. Herodotus, the father of history, wrote his 
account of the '' Persian Empire " several hundred years 



4 PREFACE. 

after the events took place wliicli he has recorded. The 
stories had been preserved to his day by tradition. 

In the traditional stories and in the truer records 
which follow, the pupil will see the play of the same 
emotions and passions which actuate men at the present 
time, and the careers of the great conquerors, Frederic 
and Napoleon, differ little essentially from those of Alex- 
ander and Csesar. Tyranny remains the same forever, 
encroaching upon human liberty and limiting the field of 
human conduct. It will be seen also that from the state 
of barbarism there has been a gradual evolution which 
more and more places men under the protection of equal 
laws. 

These books are to be used mainly for the stories they 
contain. By a simple reproduction in speech or in writ- 
ing, we have the best possible language lesson. The value 
of the books may be entirely lost by catechisms which 
demand the literal reproduction of the text. 



CONTEXTS. 



MYTHS. 

PAGE 

I. Arion 7 

II. Aracbne 12 

III. Polyphemus 15 

IV. Ulysses's Return 17 

V. Thor's Visit to Jotunheim 20 

PARABLES AND FABLES. 

VI. The Wolf and the Dog 24 

VII. Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard . 26 

VIII. Parable of the Sower and the Seed 28 

IX. Pairing-Time anticipated 30 

LEGENDS. 

X. The Gift of Tritemius 33 

XI. Damon and Pythias 36 

XIL King Canute 40 

XIII. A Norseman's Sword 43 

XIV. The Story of King Alfred and St. Cuthbert 46 

XV. A Roland for an Oliver 49 

XVI. The Legend of Macbeth 52 

OLD BALLADS. 

XVn. Chevy-Chase 59 

XVIII. Valentine and Ursine 65 



CONTENTS. 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 

PAGE 

XIX. Sennacherib 71 

XX. Glaucon 75 

XXI. Cyrus and his Grandfather 80 

XXII. Cyrus and the Armenians 83 

XXIII. The Macedonian Empire 90 

XXIV. Alexander's Conquests 98 

XXV. Judas Maccabseus, the Hebrew William Tell 106 

ROMAN RECORD. 

XXVI. Tarquin the Wicked 117 

XXVII. The Roman Republic 127 

XXVIII. Cincinnatus 137 

XXIX. The Roman Father 141 

XXX. Archimedes 150 

XXXI. The Death of Caesar 154 

XXXII. How Romans lived 161 

MEDIEVAL RECORD. 

XXXIII. Conversion of the English 169 

XXXIV. Leo the Slave 173 

XXXV. The Moors in Spain 179 

XXXVI. Charlemagne 183 

WESTERN RECORD. 

XXXVIL The Norsemen 191 

XXXVIIL Rolf the Ganger 200 

XXXIX. The True Story of Macbeth 206 

XL. Duke William of Normandy 211 

XLI. The Norman Conquest 217 

XLIL King Richard Cceur de Lion in the Holy Land 224 

XLIII. King John and the Charter 230 

XLIV. An Early Election to Parliament 237 

XLV. The Battle of Cressy 245 

XLVI. The Battle of Agincourt 251 








"'&^M 



I.-ARIOJV. 

1. Aeion was a famous 
musician, and dwelt at the 
court of Periander, King of 
Corinth, with whom he was 
a great favorite. There was a 
musical contest in Sicily, and 
Arion longed to compete for the 
prize. He told his wish to Periander, who besought him 
like a brother to give up the thought. " Pray stay with 
me," he said, " and be contented. He who strives to win 
may lose." Arion answered : " A wandering life best suits 
the free heart of a poet. A talent which a god bestowed 
upon me I would fain make a source of pleasure to others ; 
and if I win the prize, how will the enjoyment of it be 
increased by the consciousness of my wide-spread fame ! " 
2. He went, won the prize, and embarked mth his 
wealth in a Corinthian vessel for home. On the second 
morning after setting sail, the wind breathed mild and 
fair. " O Periander ! " he exclaimed, " dismiss your 
fears. Soon shall you forget them in my embrace. With 
what lavish offerings mil we display our gratitude to the 



8 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

gods, and how merry will we be at the festal board ! " 
The wind and sea continued favorable, not a cloud 
dimmed the firmament. He had not trusted too much to 
the ocean, but to man he had. He overheard the seamen 
plotting to get possession of his treasure. Presently they 
surrounded him, loud and mutinous, and said : " Arion, 
you must die ! If you would have a grave on the shore, 
yield yourself to die on this spot ; but if otherwise, cast 
yourself into the sea." 

3. " Will nothing satisfy you but my life ? " said he ; 
" take my gold in welcome. I willingly buy my life at 
that price." "No, no ; we can not spare you. Your life 
would be too dangerous to us. Where could we go to 
escape Periander if he should know that you had been 
robbed by us ? Your gold would be of little use to us, if, 
on returning home, we could never more be free from 
fear." " Grant me, then," said he, " a last request, since 
naught will prevail to save my life, that I may die as I 
have lived, as becomes a bard. When I shall have sung 
my death-song, and my harp-strings cease to vibrate, then 
I will bid farewell to life, and yield to my fate." This 
prayer, like the others, would have been unheeded — they 
thought only of their booty — but to hear so famous a 
musician moved their hearts. " Suffer me," he added, 
" to arrange my dress. Apollo will not favor me unless 
I am clad in my minstrel garb." 

4. He clothed himself in gold and purple, fair to see, 
his tunic fell around him in graceful folds, jewels adorned 
his arms, his brow was crowned w^ith a golden wreath, and 
over his neck and shoulders flowed his hair, perfumed 
with odors. His left hand held the lyre, his right the 
ivory wand with which he struck the chords. Like one 
inspired he seemed to drink the morning air and glitter 
in the morning ray. The seamen gazed in admiration. 



MYTHS. 9 

He strode forward to the vessel's side, and looked down 
into the blue sea. 

5. Addressing his Ijre, he sang: "Companion of my 
voice, come with me to the realm of shades ! Though 
Cerberus may growl, we know the powder of song can 
tame his rage. Ye heroes of Elysium, who have passed 
the darkling flood — ye happy souls, soon shall I join your 
band. Yet can ye relieve my grief ? Alas ! I leave my 
friend behind me. Thou, who didst find thy Eurydice, 
and lose her again as soon as found, when she had van- 
ished like a dream, how thou didst hate the cheerful 
light ! I must away, but I will not fear. The gods look 
down upon us. Ye who slay me unoffending, when I 
am no more your time of trembling shall come! Ye 
Nereids, receive your guest, who throws himself upon 
your mercy ! " So saying, he sprang into the deep sea. 
The weaves covered him, and the seamen held their way, 
fancying themselves safe from all danger of detection. 

6. But the strains of his music had drawn around him 
the inhabitants of the deep to listen, and dolphins fol- 
low^ed the ship as if charmed by a spell. While he strug- 
gled in the waves a dolphin offered him its back, and 
carried him mounted thereon safe to shore. At the 
spot where he landed, a monument of brass was afterward 
erected upon the rocky shore to preserve the memory of 
the event. 

7. When Arion and the dolphin parted, each returning 
to his own element, Arion thus poured forth his thanks : 
"Earewell, thou faithful, friendly fish ! Would that I 
could rew^ard tliee ! but thou canst not wend w^ith me, nor I 
with thee ; companionship we may not have. May Gala- 
tea, queen of the deep, accord thee her favor, and thou, 
proud of the burden, draw her chariot over the smooth 
mirror of the deep ! " 



10 



STORILS OF THE OLDEN TIME, 







MYTHS. II 

8. Arion hastened from the shore, and soon saw before 
him the towers of Corinth. He journeyed on, harp in 
hand, singing as he went, full of love and happiness, for- 
getting his losses, and mindful only of what remained, his 
friend and his lyre. He entered the hospitable halls, and 
was soon clasped in the embrace of Periander. " I come 
back to thee, my friend," he said. " The talent which a 
god bestowed has been the delight of thousands, but false 
knaves have stripped me of my well-earned treasure." 
Then he told all the wonderful events that had befallen 
him. Periander, who heard him in amazement, said : 
'' Shall such wickedness triumph ? Then in vain is 
power lodged in my hands. That we may discover the 
criminals you must lie here concealed, so that they come 
without suspicion." 

9. When the ship arrived in the harbor, he summoned 
the mariners before him. " Have you heard anything 
of Arion ? " he inqui4'ed. " I anxiously look for his re- 
turn." They replied, " We left him well and prosperous 
in Tarentum." As they said these words, Arion stepped 
forth and faced them. He was clad in all his glory as 
when he leaped into the sea. They fell prostrate at his 
feet, as if a lightning-bolt had struck them. " We meant 
to murder him, and he has become a god ! O earth, open 
and receive us ! " Then Periander spoke : " He lives, 
the master of the lay ! kind Heaven protects the poet's 
life. As for you, I invoke not the spirit of vengeance ; 
Arion wishes not your blood. Ye slaves of avarice, be- 
gone ! Seek some barbarous land, and never may aught 
beautiful delight your souls ! " 



12 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

II-ABACEME. 

1. In the old mythology it was considered a great 
sin for any mortal to enter into a contest with a god, and 
whenever one did so he incurred a fearful penalty. The 
maiden Arachne early showed marvelous skill in em- 
broidery and all kinds of needle-work. So beautiful 
were her designs that the nymphs themselves would leave 
their groves and fountains, and come and gaze delighted 
upon her work. It was not only beautiful when it was 
done, but was beautiful in the doing. As they watched 
the delicate touch of her fingers they declared that the 
goddess Minerva must have been her teacher. This 
Arachne denied, and, grown very vain of her many com- 
pliments, she said : " Let Minerva try her skill with 
mine, and if beaten I will pay the penalty ! " 

2. Minerva heard this, and was greatly displeased at 
the vanity and presumption of tha maiden. Assuming 
the form of an old woman she went to Arachne and 
gave her some friendly advice. " I have much expe- 
rience," she said, " and I hope you will not despise my 
counsel. Challenge mortals as much as you like, but do 
not try and compete with a goddess ! " Arachne stopped 
her spinning, and angrily replied : " keep your counsel 
for your daughters and handmaids ; for my part, I know 
what I say, and I stand to it. I am not afraid of the 
goddess." 

3. Minerva then dropped her disguise, and stood be- 
fore the company in her proper person. The nymphs 
at once paid her homage. Arachne alone had no fear. 
She stood by her resolve, and the contest proceeded. Each 
took her station, and attached the web to the beam. Both 
worked with speed ; their skillful hands moved rapidly, 
and the excitement of the contest made the labor light. 



-^^ 
"'^&^ 



...p^ 




mwr^^^^^ 



4. Minerva wrought into 
I her web the scene of her 
contest with ^N'eptune. The 



14 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

gods are all represented in their most august forms, and 
the picture is noble in its perfect simplicity and chaste 
beauty. In the four corners she wrought scenes where 
mortals entered into contest with gods and were punished 
for their presumption. These were meant as warnings 
to her rival to give up the contest before it was too late. 

5. Arachne filled her web with subjects designedly 
chosen to exhibit the failings and errors of the gods. 
Every story to their discredit she appears to have treas- 
ured up. The last scene she represented w^as that of 
Jupiter in the form of a bull carrying oif Europa across 
the sea, leaving the heart-broken mother to wander in 
search of her child until she died. 

6. Minerva examined the work of her rival, and 
doubly angry at the presumption and the sacrilege mani- 
fested in her choice of subjects, struck her web with a 
shuttle and tore it from the loom. She then touched the 
forehead of Arachne and made her feel her guilt and 
shame. This she could not endure, and went out and 
hanged herself. Minerva pitied her, as she saw her 
hanging by a rope. " Live, guilty woman," said she ; 
" and that you may preserve the memory of this lesson, 
continue to hang, you and your descendants, to all future 
times." She sprinkled her with the juice of aconite, and 
immediately her form shrunk up, her head grew small, 
and her fingers grew to her sides and served as legs. All 
the rest of her is body, out of which she spins her 
thread, often hanging suspended by it in the same atti- 
tude as w^hen Minerva touched her and transformed her 
into a spider. 



MYTHS. 15 

I I I. -POL YPHEMUS. 

1. When Troy was captured, Ulysses, the King of Itha- 
ca, set sail for his native country. With favorable winds he 
should have reached home in a few months, but he met 
with so many adventures that it was ten years before he 
saw the shores of his beloved Ithaca. At one time he 
and his companions landed upon an unknown shore in 
search of food. Ulysses took with him a jar of wine as 
a present should he meet with any inhabitants. Presently 
they came to a large cave, and entered it. There they 
found lambs and kids in their pens, and a table spread 
with cheese, fruits, and bowls of milk. But soon the 
master of the cave, Polyphemus, returned, and Ulysses 
saw that they were in the land of the Cyclops, a race of 
immense giants. The name means ''round eye," and 
these giants w^ere so called because they had but one eye, 
and that was placed in the middle of the forehead. 

2. Polyphemus drove into the cave the sheep and the 
goats to be milked, and then placed a huge rock at the 
mouth of the cave to serve as a door. While attending 
to his supper he chanced to spy the Greeks, who were 
hidden in one corner. He growled out to them, de- 
manding to know who they were, and where from. Ulysses 
replied, stating that they were returning from the siege 
of Troy, and that they had landed in search of provisions. 
At this Polyphemus gave no answer, but seizing a couple 
of Greeks, he killed and ate them up on the spot. He 
then went to sleep, and his snoring sounded like thunder 
in the ears of the terrified Greeks all the livelong night. 
In the morning the giant arose, ate two more men, and 
went out with his flocks, having carefully secured the 
door so that the remainder could not get away. 

3. Then Ulysses contrived a plan to punish the giant, 



16 



STOEIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



and get away from his clutches. He foimd a great bar 
of wood which the giant had cut for a staff. This his 
men sharpened at one end and hardened at the lire. 
Then a number were selected to use it, and they awaited 
events. In the evening Polyphemus returned, and hav- 
ing eaten his two men he lay down to sleep. But Ulysses 
presented him with some of the wine from the jar w^hich 
the giant eagerly drank, and called for more. In a short 
time he was quite drunk, and then he asked Ulysses his 
name, and he replied : '' My name is Noman." 




Polyphemus. 



4. When the giant was fairly asleep, the sailors seized 
the sharpened stick, and, aiming it directly at his single 
eye, they rushed forward with all their might. The eye 
was put out, and the giant was left blind. He felt around 
the cave trying to catch his tormentors, but they con- 
trived to get out of his way. He then howled so loud 



MYTHS, 17 

that his neighbors came to see what was the matter, when 
he said, "I am hurt, Noman did it ! " Then they said, 
" If no man did it, we can not help you." So they went 
home, leaving him groaning. 

5. In the morning Polyphemus rolled away the stone 
to let out his sheep and goats, and the Greeks contrived 
to get out with them without being discovered. Once 
out, they lost no time in driving the flocks down to the 
shore, and then with their vessels wxll provisioned they 
set sail once more for their native land. 



IV.-ULYSSES'S RETURJT. 

1. Ulysses, the lord of Ithaca, went to assist the 
Greeks in the siege of Troy. For ten long years the war 
lasted, and when Troy fell, Ulysses was ten more years 
in reaching his home. He met with so many accidents 
and adventures that delayed him, that even his stout heart 
almost gave out as he thought of the wife and children 
waiting for him through all these weary years. In the 
mean time his son Telemachus had grown to manhood, 
and had gone in search of his father. 

2. During all this time his wife, Queen Penelope, 
never lost hope, but lived daily looking for her husband 
to come sailing over the sea. But while the master was 
away, more than a hundred young lords laid claim to the 
hand of Penelope, so as to obtain the power and riches of 
Ulysses. They lorded it over the palace and people as 
if they were the owners of both, and they paid no atten- 
tion to the wishes of Penelope, as she was but a woman, 
and could not protect herseK. Her only safety lay in 



18 



STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



the fact that the suitors were jealous of each other, and 
no one could make any advance until Penelope had made 
her selection. 

3. At last Ulysses returned in the disguise of a beg- 
gar. No one knew him except his old dog Argus, who, 
in his excess of joy, died while lick- 
ing his hands. He made himself 
known to Eumseus, a faithful serv- 
ant, and by him was presented to 
Telemachus, who had just returned. 
Great was the joy of father and son 
at thus meeting each other. Then 
the three laid a plan to punish the 
suitors and to rid Ithaca of their 
presence. In carrying out this plan, 
Telemachus went to his mother's 
palace publicly, and the suitors bade 




and his Dog. 



him welcome, though they secretly hated him, and had 
tried to take his life. Here he found feasting going on, 
and, at his request, the supposed beggar was admitted to 
the foot of the table. 

4. Penelope had put off her decision on various pre- 
texts until now, when there appeared no other reason for 
delay. So she announced that she would accept the one 
who would shoot an arrow through twelve rings arranged 
in a line. A bow formerly used by Ulysses was brought 



MYTHS. 



19 



in and all other arms removed. All things being ready, 
the first thing to be done was to attach the string to the 
bow, which required the bow to be bent. Telemachus 
tried and failed. Then each of the suitors tried in turn, 
and all failed. They even rubbed the bow with tallow, 
but it would not bend. 

5. Here Ulysses spoke and said : " Beggar as I am, I 
once was a soldier, and there is some strength in these 
old limbs of mine yet. Let me try." The suitors hooted 
at him, and would have turned him out of the hall ; but 
Telemachus said it was best to gratify the old man, and 
so put the bow in his hand. Ulysses took it and easily 
adjusted the cord. Then he selected an arrow and sent 




Penelope and Ulysses's Boio. 



it through the twelve rings at the first shot. Before the 
suitors recovered from their astonishment he sent another 
through the heart of the most insolent of them. Telema- 
chus, Eumaeus, and another faithful servant sprang to 
theii' aid. The suitors looked around for arms, but, there 



20 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

were none. Ulysses did not let them remain long in 
doubt ; lie announced himself as the long-lost chief whose 
house they had invaded, whose substance they had squan- 
dered, and whose wife and son they had persecuted for 
ten long years, and told them he meant to have ample 
vengeance. All the suitors were slain but two, and Ulys- 
ses was left master of his own palace and the possessor 
of his kingdom and wife. 



V--THOR'S VISIT TO JOTUJ^HEIM. 

1. Thor, the god of the E'orthmen, who always car- 
ried a hammer to make his' way or obtain his wishes, 
heard of the giant's country, Jotunheim, of which Utgard 
was the capital, and he resolved on a visit to that region 
to try his strength with any one whom he might find. 
So, accompanied by his servants, Thiolfi and Loki, he set 
out. Thiolfi was of all men the swiftest on foot. At 
nightfall they took refuge from a storm in a very large 
building which they imperfectly saw in the dim light, 
but were kept awake by loud thunder which shook their 
abode like an earthquake. In the morning it was found 
that the thunder was the snoring of a huge giant sleeping 
near by, and that the building in which they had taken 
shelter was the giant's glove. 

2. The giant, whose name was Skrymer, knew Thor, 
and proposed that they should travel together, to which 
the god consented. At night they encamped, and soon 
the giant was asleep. Thor, finding that he could not 
untie the provision-bag which the giant had carried all 
day, went into a rage and struck the sleeper a mighty 



MYTHS. 21 

blow with his hammer. Skrymer awoke and said, " The 
leaves are falling, for one just now fell upon my breast." 
They lay down again, and soon the giant began to snore 
so loud that Thor could get no sleep, so he grasped 
the hammer in both hands and dealt him another blow. 
Skrymer awoke and called out, " How fares it with thee, 
Thor ? A bird must be overhead — a bunch of moss has just 
now fallen upon me." Just before dayhght Thor thought 
that he would end this matter then, so he seized his ham- 
mer and threw it with all his might. Skrymer awoke, 
and stroking his cheek said, " An acorn fell upon my head. 
But let us be stirring, as we have a long day before us." 

3. When within sight of the city Skrymer turned off, 
as his route lay in another direction, and soon Thor and 
his companions were in presence of the giant king. Ad- 
dressing Thor, the king asked if he or his companions 
could do anything better than others, for he said that no 
one was permitted to remain in the city unless he excelled 
in something. 

4. Loki, who was a great eater, proposed a feast, and 
the king called Logi to come out and compete with him. 
A trough filled with meat was placed in the midst of the 
hall, and Loki beginning at one end soon ate all the flesh 
to the middle of the trough ; but it was found that Logi 
had devoured both flesh and bones and the trough to 
boot. So the company adjudged Loki vanquished. 

5. Next Thiolfi presented himself to run a race, and 
the king brought out a young man named Hugi to run 
with him. Hugi ran over the course and turning back 
met Thiolfi but just started. Then the king remarked 
that if Thor could not do better than his servants, it were 
well that he stay at home. Then a drinking-match was 
proposed, and a drinking-horn was brought in. It was 
not very large, but was of great length, and the king 



22 STORIES OF T3E OLDEN TIME. 

remarked that any one of his subjects ought to empty 
it at a single draught, but none would fail to do so in 
three draughts. Thor drank long and deep, but the horn 
was as fall as before ; a second trial met with a similar 
failure. Then Thor straightened himself for a mighty 
effort and drank as the thirsty earth drinks of the rains 
from heaven. The liquor was diminished, but still the 
horn was nearly full. " I perceive," said the king, " that 
thou canst not be very thirsty, or thou wouldst drink 
more." 

6. "What new trial do you propose?" said Thor. 
" We have a trifling game here," said the king, " in which 
we exercise none but children. It consists in merely Hft- 
ing my cat from the ground, and I should not have men- 
tioned it to the great Thor if I had not observed that 
thou art by no means what we took thee for." As he 
finished speaking, a large gray cat sprang into the hall. 
Thor put forth all his mighty strength three times with- 
out lifting her, though on the third trial one foot was 
raised from the floor. 

7. "Well." said the king, "only one trial remains for 
thee. Thou must w^restle with somebody, and after thy 
failures to-day none of our men will wrestle with thee." 
So saying, the king called upon his old nurse, a toothless 
crone, shaking and trembling on the edge of the grave. 
Thor grasped her and put forth a mighty effort, but the 
old woman stood fast. At last she grasped him in turn, 
and he was thrown upon his knee. The king here inter- 
fered, and the contests came to an end. The travelers, 
however, were royally entertained, and after a good 
night's rest, and a bountiful breakfast, they bade the king 
good-by, and set out on their return. 

8. Toward night they overtook a traveler, who proved 
to be Skrymer, their former companion and guide, and 



MYTHS. 23 

they encamped together in the very wood where they 
passed then- first night together. The giant, perceiving 
the dejected looks of Thor, said, " Something appears to 
trouble thee ; has thy journey gone amiss ? " Thereupon 
Thor related the whole story of his failures. "Then," 
said the giant, "take heart, for thou hast performed 
great wonders, but hast been the victim of delusions. 
Observe me closely ! " Thor looked, and saw that 
Skrymer and the king were one and the same person. 

9. " IS^ow," said the king, " Loki devoured all that 
was set before him, but Logi was Fire, and consumed 
trough and all. Hugi, with whom Thiolfi was running, 
was Thought, and not the swiftest runner can keep pace 
with that. The horn that thou failedst to empty had its 
lower end in the sea, and thou wilt see how the very 
ocean is lowered by thy draught. The cat is the animal 
that bears up the world, and thy last mighty effort caused 
the solid earth to shake as with an earthquake. The old 
woman with whom thou wrestledst was old age, and she 
throws everybody." The king then pointed out the place 
where Thor dealt his blows on the night of their first 
meeting, and lo ! three mighty chasms showed where the 
solid mountains had been rent asunder. 



PARABLES AND FABLES. 



VI.-THE WOLF AMD THE BOG. 




LEAIM, hungry wolf, fell in one 
moonlight night with a jolly, plum|3, 
well-fed mastiff, and after the first 
greetings were passed, the wolf ac- 
costed him : " You look extremely 
well," said he, "I think I never saw a more graceful, 
comely personage ; but how comes it about, I beseech 
you, til at you should live so much better than I ? I may 
say, without vanity, that I venture fifty times more than 
you do, and yet I am almost ready to perish with hun- 
ger." The dog answered very bluntly ; '' Why, you 



PARABLES AND FABLES. 25 

may live as well as I if you will do the same services for 
it." The wolf pricked up his ears at the proposal, and 
requested to be informed what he must do to earn such 
plentiful meals. " Very little," answered the dog ; " only 
to guard the house at night, and keep it from thieves and 
beggars." " With all my heart," rejoined the woK, " for 
at present I have but a sorry time of it ; and, I think, to 
change my hard lodging in the woods, where I endure 
rain, frost, and snow, for a warm roof over my head and 
plenty of food, will be no bad bargain." " True," said 
the dog, " therefore, you have nothing more to do than 
to follow me." 

2. As they were jogging along together, the wolf 
spied a circle, worn round his friend's neck, and, being 
almost as curious as some of a higher species, he could 
not forbear asking what it meant. " Pooh ! nothing," 
said the dog, "or at most a mere trifle." "Nay, but 
pray," urged the wolf, " inform me." " Why, then," said 
the dog, " perhaps it is the collar to which my chain is 
fastened ; for I am sometimes tied up in the day-time, 
because I am a little fierce, and might bite people, and 
am only let loose at night. But this is done with design 
to make me sleep in the day, more than anything else, 
that I may watch the better in the night-time. As soon 
as the twilight appears, I am turned loose, and may go 
where I please. Then my master brings me plates of 
bones from the table with his own hands ; and whatever 
scraps are left by the family fall to my share, for you 
must know I am a favorite with everybody. So, seeing 
how you are to live, come along ! Why, what is the matter 
with you ? " "I beg your pardon," replied the wolf, " but 
you may keep your happiness to yourself. I am resolved 
to have no share in your dinners. Half a meal, with hb- 
erty, is, in my estimation, worth a full one without it." 



26 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

VII-PABABLE OF THE LABORERS IJ^ THE 
VIJ^EYARD. 

1. FoK tlie kingdom of heaven is like unto a man 
that is a householder, which went out early in the morn- 
ing to hire laborers into his vineyard. 

2. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a 
penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 

3. And he went out about the third hour, and saw 
others standing idle in the market-place, 

4. And said unto them ; go ye also into the vine- 
yard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they 
went their way. 

5. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, 
and did likewise. 

6. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and 
found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why 
stand ye here all the day idle ? 

7. They say unto him, because no man hath hired us. 
He saith unto them, go ye also into the vineyard ; and 
whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. 

8. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard 
saith unto his steward, call the laborers, and give them 
their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. 

9. And when they came that were hired about the 
eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. 

10. But when the first came, they supposed that they 
should have received more ; and they likewise received 
every man a penny. 

11. And when they had received it, they murmured 
against the good man of the house, 

12. Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, 
and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have 
borne the burden and heat of the day. 



PARABLES AND FABLES. 



27 




13. But be answered one of them, and said, Friend, 
I do thee no wrong : didst not thou agree with me for a 



penny 



28 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

14. Take that thine is, and go thy way : I will give 
unto this last, even as unto thee. 

15. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with 
mine own ? Is thine eye evil, because I am good ? 

16. . So the last shall be first, and the first last : for 
many be called, but few chosen. 

{St. Matthew^ xx. 1-16. 



VIIL-P ARABLE OF THE SO WEB AJfD THE SEED. 

1. The same day went Jesus out of the house, and 
sat by the sea side. 

2. And great multitudes were gathered together unto 
him, so that he went into a ship, and sat ; and the whole 
multitude stood on the shore. 

3. And he spake many things unto them in parables, 
saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow ; 

4. And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way- 
side, and the fowls came and devoured them up : 

5. Some fell upon stony places, where they had not 
much earth : and forthwith they sprung up, because they 
had no deepness of earth : 

6. Arid when the sun was up, they were scorched; 
and because they had no root, they withered away. 

7. And some fell among thorns ; and the thorns 
sprung up, and choked them : 

8. But other fell into good ground, and brought- 
forth fruit, some a hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some 
thirty-fold. 

9. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. 

10. And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why 
speakest thou unto them in parables ? 



PARABLES AND FABLES. 



29 



11. He answered and said unto tliem, Because it is 
given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven, but to them it is not given. 




A Sower went forth to Sow. 



30 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

12o For whosoever hath, to him shall be given , and 
he shall have more abundance : but whosoever hath not, 
from him shall be taken away even that he hath. 

13. Therefore speak I to them in parables : because 

they seeing see not ; and hearing they hear not, neither 

do they understand. 

{St. Matthew xiii, 1-13.) 



IX.-FAIRIXG-TIME AJYTICIPATED. 

1. I SHALL not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau 
If birds confabulate or no ; 

'Tis clear that they were always able 

To hold discourse, — at least in fable ; 

And even the child, who knows no better 

Than to interpret by the letter 

A story of a cock and bull, 

Must have a most uncommon skull. 

2. It chanced then on a winter's day, 

But warm and bright and calm as May, 

The birds, conceiving a design 

To forestall sweet Saint Valentine, 

In many an orchard, copse, and grove. 

Assembled on affairs of love. 

And with much twitter and much chatter, 

Began to agitate the matter. 

3. At length a bull-finch, who could boast 
More years and wisdom than the most, 
Entreated, opening wide his beak 

A moment's liberty to speak. 
And silence publicly enjoined, 



PAEABLES AND FABLES. 31 

Briefly delivered thus his mind : 
" My friends ! be cautious how ye treat 
The subject upon which we meet ; 
I fear we shall have winter yet." 

4. A Unch, whose tongue knew no control. 
With golden wings and satin poll, 
A last year's bird, who ne'er had tried 
What marriage means, thus pert, replied : 
" Methinks the gentleman," quoth she, 
" Opposite in the apple-tree, 
Bj his good will, would keep us single 
'Till yonder heaven and earth shall mingloj 
Or, what is likelier to befall, 
'Till death exterminate us all. 
I marry without more ado ! 
My dear Dick Redcap, what say you ? " 

6. Dick heard, and tweedling, ogling, bridling, 
Turning short round, strutting and sidling. 
Attested glad his approbation 
Of an immediate conjugation. 
Their sentiments so well expressed. 
Mightily influenced all the rest. 
All paired and each pair built a nest. 

6. But though the birds were thus in haste, 
The leaves came out not quite so fast. 
And destiny, that sometimes bears 
An aspect stern on men's affairs, 
Not altogether smiled on their's. 
The wind of late breathed gently forth, 
Now shifted east and east by north. 
Bare trees and shrubs, but ill, you know, 
Could shelter them from rain or snow. 



32 



STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



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7. Stepping into their nests they paddled ; 
Themselves were chilled, their eggs were addled ; 
Soon every father bird and mother, 

Grew quarrelsome and pecked each other, 
Parted without the least regret — 
Except that they had ever met — 
And learned in future to be wiser 
Than to neglect a good adviser. 

8. Moral: 

Misses, the tale that I relate. 

This moral seems to carry — 
Choose not alone a proper mate, 

But proper time to marry. 

CowjpeT. 



LEGEI^DS. 



X-THE GIFT OF TBITEMIUS. 

1. Teitemiqs, of Herbipolis, one day, 

While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray, 
Alone with God, as was his pious choice, 
Heard from Tvithout a miserable voice, 
A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell, 
As of a lost soul crying out of hell. 

\ 2. Thereat the abbot paused ; the chain whereby 
His thoughts went upward broken by that cry ; 
And, looking from the casement, saw below 
A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow. 
And withered hands held up to him, who cried 
For alms as one who might not be denied. 

She cried, " For the dear love of Him who gave 
His life for ours, my child from bondage save, — 
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves 
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves 
Lap the white walls of Tunis ! " " What I can 
" I give," Tritemius said : " my prayers." ^' O man 
Of God," she cried, for grief had made her bold, 
'^ Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers, but gold. 



LEGENDS. 35 

Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice ; 
Even while I speak, perchance, my first-born dies." 

4. " Woman," Tritemius answered, " from our door 
l!^one go unfed ; hence are we always poor ; 

A single soldo is our only store. 

Thou hast our prayers ; what can we give thee more ? '' 

5. " Give me," she said, " the silver candlesticks 
On either side of the great crucifix ; 

God may well spare them on his errands sped, 
Or he can give you golden ones instead." 

6. Then spake Tritemius : " Even as thy word, 
Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious Lord, 
Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice. 
Pardon me if a human soul I prize 
Above the gifts upon his altar piled !) 

Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child," 

7. But his hand trembled as the holy alms 

He placed within the beggar's eager palms ; 
And as she vanished down the linden shade. 
He bowed his head, and for forgiveness prayed. 

8. So the day passed, and when the twilight came 
He woke to find the chapel all aflame, 

And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold 
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold ! 

Whittier. 



36 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

XL-BAMOJV AXB PYTHIAS. 

1. About four hundred years before the Christian 
era, the government of Syracuse fell into the hands of 
Dionysius, a successful general of the army. He dispos- 
sessed the magistrates whom the people elected, and was 
therefore a usurper. While ruling justly in the main, 
he had a capricious temper, and often in his rage per- 
formed actions which he sincerely regretted in his sober 
moments. He was a good scholar, and very fond of phi- 
losophy and poetry, and he delighted to have learned 
men around him, and he had naturally a generous spirit; 
but the sense that he was in a position that did not belong 
to him, and that every one hated him for assuming it, 
made him very harsh and suspicious. It is of him that 
the story is told, that he had a chamber hollowed in the 
rock near his state prison, and constructed with galleries 
to conduct sounds like an ear, so that he might overhear 
the conversation of his captives ; and of him, too, is told 
that famous anecdote which has become a j)roverb, that 
on hearing a friend, named Damocles, express a wish to 
be in his situation for a single day, he took him at his 
word, and Damocles found himself at a banquet with 
everything that could delight his senses, delicious food, 
costly wine, flowers, perfumes, music, but with a sword 
with the point almost touching his head, and hanging by 
a single horse-hair ! This was to show the condition in 
which a usurper lived. 

2. Thus Dionysius was in constant dread. He had a 
wide trench round his bedroom, with a drawbridge that 
he drew up and put down with his own hands ; and he 
put one barber to death for boasting that he held a razor 
to the tyrant's throat every morning. After this he 
made his young daughters shave him ; and by-and-by he 




Damon and I'l/thius. 



38 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

would not trust them with a razor, and caused them to 
singe off his beard with hot nut-shells. 

3. One philosopher, named Philoxenus, he sent to a 
dungeon for finding fault with his poetrj, but he after- 
ward composed another piece, which he thought so supe- 
rior that he could not be content without sending for this 
adverse critic to hear it. When he had finished reading 
it, he looked to Philoxenus for a compliment; but the 
philosopher only turned round to the guards, and said 
dryly, " Carry me back to prison." This time Dionysius 
had the sense to laugh, and forgive his honesty. 

4. All these stories may not be true ; but that they 
should have been current in the ancient world, shows 
what was the character of the man of whom they were 
told, how stern and terrible was his anger, and how easily 
it was incurred. Among those who came under it was a 
Pythagorean called Pythias, who was sentenced to death, 
according to the usual fate of those who fell under his 
suspicion. 

5. Pythias had lands and relations in Greece, and he 
entreated as a favor to be allowed to return thither and 
arrange his affairs, engaging to return within a specified 
time and suffer death. The tyrant laughed his request to 
scorn. Once safe out of Sicily, who would answer for 
his return? Pythias made reply tliat he had a friend 
who would become security for his return ; and while 
Dionysius, the miserable man who trusted nobody, was 
ready to scoff at his simplicity, another Pythagorean, by 
name Damon, came forward and offered to become surety 
for his friend, engaging that, if Pythias did not return 
according to promise, to suffer death in his stead, 

6. Dionysius, much astonished, consented to let Pyth- 
ias go, marveling what would be the issue of the affair. 
Time went on, and Pythias did not appear. The Syra- 



LEGENDS. 39 

cusans watched Damon, but he showed no uneasiness. 
He said he was secure of his friend's truth and honor, and 
that if any accident had caused his delay, he should re- 
joice in dying to save the life of one so dear to him. 

7. Even to the last day Damon continued serene and 
content, however it might fall out ; nay, even when the 
very hour drew nigh and still no Pythias. His trust was 
so perfect that he did not even grieve at having to die for 
a faithless friend who left him to the fate to which he 
had unwarily pledged himself. It was not Pythias's own 
will, but the winds and waves, so he still declared, when 
the decree was brought and the instruments of death 
made ready. The hour had come, and a few moments 
more would have ended Damon's life, when Pythias duly 
presented himself, embraced his friend, and stood forward 
himself to receive his sentence, calm, resolute, and re- 
joiced that he had come in time. 

8. Even the dim hope they owned of a future state 
was enough to make these two brave men keep their 
word, and confront death for one another without quail- 
ing. Dionysius looked on more struck than ever. He 
felt that neither of such men must die. He reversed the 
sentence of Pythias, and calling the two to his judgment- 
seat, he entreated them to admit him as a third in their 
friendship. 

Charlotte M. Yonge. 



I 



40 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



XIL-KIKG CAJfUTE. 

1. Upon his royal throne he sat 

In a monarch's thoughtful mood ; 
Attendants on his regal state, 

His servile courtiers stood, 
With foolish flatteries, false and vain, 
To win his smile, his favor gain. 

2. They told him e'en the mighty deep 

His kingly sway confessed ; 
"^ That he could bid its billows leap. 

Or still its stormy breast ! 
He smiled contemptuously and cried, 
" Be then my boasted empire tried ! " 

3. Down to the ocean's sounding shore 

The proud procession came, 
To see its billows' wild uproar 

King Canute's power proclaim, 
Or, at his high and dread command. 
In gentle murmurs kiss the strand. 

4. Kot so thought he, their noble king, 

As his course he seaward sped ; 
And each base slave, like a guilty thing, 

Hung down his conscious head : 
He knew the ocean's Lord on high ! 
They, that he scorned their senseless lie. 

5. His throne was placed by ocean's side, 

He lifted his scepter there, 
Bidding, with tones of kingly pride, 

The waves their strife forbear ; 
And while he spoke his royal will, 
All but the winds and waves were still. 



LEGENDS. 



41 




Canute and his Courtiers. 



42 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

6. Louder the stormj blast swept bj, 

In scorn of idle word ; 
The brinj deep its waves tossed bigh, 

Bj his mandate undeterred, 
As threatening, in their angrj play. 
To sweep both king and court away. 

T. Tbe monarch, with upbraiding look. 

Turned to the courtly ring ; 
But none the kindling eye could brook 

Even of his eartlily king ; 
For in that wrathful glance they see 
A mightier monarch wronged than he ! 

8. Canute, thy regal race is run ; 

Thy name had passed away. 
But for the meed this tale hath won, 

Which never sball decay : 
Its meek, unperishing renown 
Outlasts thy scepter and tby crown. 

9. The Persian, in his migbty pride. 

Forged fetters for the main. 
And, when its floods bis power defied, 

Inflicted stripes as vain ; 
But it was worthier far of thee 
To know thyself tban rule the sea ! 

Bernard Barton. 



LEGENDS. 43 

XIII-A J^OBSEMAJ^'S SWOED. 

1. The smelting of iron in the north of Europe is 
beheved to have commenced with the Finns or Lapland- 
ers, the original inhabitants of Scandinavia, who then oc- 
cupied the localities where the best ores are still found. 
The diminutive stature of these people compared with 
that of their Gothic invaders, their skill in penetrat- 
ing the bowels of the earth in search of ores, the smoke 
of their collieries, the flame and thunder of their fur- 
naces and forges, and, above all, the excellent temper 
of the weapons wrought by them — all these conspired 
to render them objects of superstitious wonder to the 
Goths. 

2. The legendary stories of that people are filled with 
strange tales of the northern dwarfs, who lived in the 
solid rock, and possessed magic skill in all the various 
arts of the smith. One of these legends may be worth 
citing, and the rather, because it relates to Yanlander, the 
Scandinavian Yulcan, of whom many traditions are extant, 
even in England, wiiere he is styled Wayland Smith. At 
the age of thirteen Yanlander was apprenticed by his 
father, the giant Yade, to two of the dwarfs who dwelt in 
the interior of the mountain, and he applied himself so 
faithfully to their instructions, that in two years he 
equaled his masters in knowledge of all the arts of smith- 
ery, both black and white. 

3. Being at the court of King Nidung, where his dex- 
terity as a smith became known, a rivalship arose between 
him and Amilias, principal smith to the king. Amilias 
challenged Yanlander to a trial of skill, upon condition 
that the life of the vanquished should be at the disposal 
of the victor. The terms proposed were that Yanlander 
should forge a sword, and Amilias a helmet, cuirass, and 



44: 



STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



other defensive armor, and a twelvemontli was allowed 
preparation. If the sword of Yanlander penetrated 
armor of Amilias, the former 
was to be declared the victor, 
if otherwise, his life was for- 
feited to his rival. 



for 
the II 




A Norseman'' s Sword. 



4. Amilias spent the whole year at his task, but Van- 
lander did not commence his labors until two months 



LEGENDS. 45 

before the trial. He now, after seven days' labor, exhib- 
ited to the king a sword of great beauty and excellent 
temper, but too heavy for use. By way of testing its 
edge, he took a cushion stuffed with wool a foot in 
thickness, threw it into the river, and let it float with 
the current against the edge of the sword, which cut it 
fairly in two. The king thought this a suflScient proof, 
but Yanlander was not satisfied. 

5. He took the sword to his smithy, filed it quite to 
dust, and after subjecting the filings to an odd process of 
animal chemistry, he forged from them another sword of 
somewhat smaller size than the first, though still rather 
heavy. Upon testing this sword in the same manner as 
before, it readily divided a cushion two feet in thickness, 
and the king thought it the finest weapon in the world, 
but Yanlander said he would have it half as good again 
before he was done with it. 

6. It was now reduced to filings, which were treated 
as in the former instance, and in three weeks Yanlander 
produced a sword of convenient size, inlaid with gold, 
and with an ornamental hilt, all of the highest finish and 
beauty. The king and the smith w^ent again to the river 
with a cushion three feet in thickness, which was thrown 
into the water and driven against the blade as before. 
The sword divided the cushion as easily as the water, and 
without even checking its progress as it floated with the 
current, and King Nidung declared its fellow could not 
be found on earth. 

7. At the appointed day Amilias put on his armor, 
all of which was of double plates, and, declaring himself 
ready for the trial, seated himself in a chair, and defied 
his rival to do his worst. Yanlander stepped behind him, 
gave him a blow upon the helmet, and asked him if he 
felt the edge. ^'I felt as if cold water were running 



46 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

through me," replied Amilias. " Shake yourself," said 
Yanlander. His rival did so, and fell asunder, the sword 
having cleft him to the chine. 

George P. Marsh. 



XIV.-THE STORY OF KIMG ALFRED AJ^B ST. 
CUTHBERT. 

1. Now King Alfred was driven from his kingdom 
by the Danes, and he lay hid three years in the Isle of 
Glastonbury. And it came to pass on a day that all his 
folk were gone out to fish, save only Alfred himself and 
his wife and one servant whom he loved. And there 
came a pilgrim to the king and begged for food. And 
the king said to his servant, " What food have we in the 
house ? " And his servant answered, '^ My lord, we have 
but one loaf and a little wine." Then the king gave 
thanks to God, and said, " Give half of the loaf and half 
of the wine to this poor pilgrim." So the servant did as 
his lord commanded him, and gave to the pilgrim half of 
the loaf and half of the w^ine, and the pilgrim gave great 
thanks to the king. 

2. And when the servant returned he found the loaf 
whole, and the wine as much as there had been aforetime. 
And he greatly wondered, and he wondered also how the 
pilgrim had come into the isle, for that no man could 
come there save by water, and the pilgrim had no boat. 
And the king greatly wondered also. And at the ninth 
hour came back the folk who had gone to fish. And they 
had three boats full of fish, and they said, " Lo, we have 
caught more fish this day than in all the three years that 
we have tarried in this island ! " And the king was glad, 



LEGENDS. 47 

and he and his folk were merry ; yet he pondered much 
upon that which had come to pass. 

3. And when night came the king went to his bed, 
and the king lay awake and thought of all that had come 
to pass by day. And presently he saw a great light, like 
the brightness of the sun, and he saw an old man with 
black hair, clothed in priest's garments, and with a miter 
on his head, and holding in his right hand a book of the 
Gospels adorned with gold and gems. And the old man 
blessed the king, and the king said unto him, '' Who art 
thou ? " And he answered : " Alfred, my son, rejoice ; 
for I am he to whom thou didst this day give thine alms, 
and I am called Cuthbert the Soldier of Christ. 

4. " ^ow be strong and very courageous, and be of 
joyful heart, and hearken diligently to the things wliicli I 
say unto thee ; for henceforth I will be thy shield and 
thy friend, and I will watch over thee and over thy sons 
after thee. And now I will tell thee what thou must do : 
Rise up early in the morning and blow thine horn thrice, 
that thine enemies may hear it and fear, and by the ninth 
hour thou shalt have around thee five hundred men har- 
nessed for the battle. And this shall be a sign imto thee 
that thou mayst believe. And after seven days thou 
shalt have, by God's gift and m}^ help, all the folk of 
this land gathered unto thee upon the mount that is 
called Assaudun. And thus shalt thou fight against 
thine enemies, and doubt not that thou shalt overcome 
them. 

5. " Be thou, therefore, glad of heart, and be strong 
and very courageous, and fear not, for God hath given 
thine enemies into thine hand. And he hath given thee 
also all this land and the kingdom of thy fathers, to thee 
and to thy sons and to thy sons' sons after thee. Be thou 
faithful to me and to my folk, because that unto thee is 

3 



48 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

given all the land of Albion. Be thou righteous, because 
thou art chosen to be the king of all Britain. So may 
God be merciful unto thee, and I will be thy friend, and 
none of thine enemies shall ever be able to overcome 
thee." 

6. Then was King Alfred glad at heart, and he was 
strong and very courageous, for that he knew that he 
would overcome his enemies by the help of God and St. 
Cuthbert his patron. So in the morning he arose and 
sailed to the land, and blew his horn three times, and 
when his friends heard it they rejoiced, and when his 
enemies heard it they feared. And by the ninth hour, 
according to the word of the Lord, there were gathered 
unto him hve hundred men of the bravest and dearest of 
his friends. 

7. And he spake unto them and told them all that 
God had said unto them by the mouth of his servant 
Cuthbert, and he told them that, by the gift of God and 
by the help of St. Cuthbert, they would overcome their^ 
enemies and win back their own land. And he bad( 
them, as St. Cuthbert had taught him, to be pious to- 
ward God and righteous toward men. And he bade his 
son Edward, who was by him, to be faithful to God 
and St. Cuthbert, and so he should always have victory 
over his enemies. So they went forth to battle and 
smote their enemies and overcame them, and King Al- 
fred took the kingdom of all Britain, and he ruled well 
and wisely over the just and the unjust for the rest of 

his days. 

E. A. Freeman. 



LEGENDS. 49 

XV.-A ROLAKB FOR AK OLIVER. 

1. MiLOx, or Mil one, a knight of great family, and 
distantly related to Charlemagne, having secretly married 
Bertha, the emperors sister, was banished from France. 
After a long and miserable wandering on foot as mendi- 
cants, Milon and his wife arrived at Sutri, in Italy, where 
they took refuge in a cave, and in that cave Orlando was 
born. There his mother continued, drawing a scanty 
support from the compassion of the neighboring peasants, 
while Milon, in quest of honor and fortune, went into 
foreign lands. Orlando grew up among the children of 
the peasantry, surpassing them all in strength and manly 
graces. 

2. Among his companions in age, though in station 
far more elevated, w^as Oliver, son of the governor of the 
town. Between the two boys a feud arose, that led to a 
fight, in which Orlando thrashed his rival ; but this did 
not prevent a friendship springing up between the two 
which lasted through life. 

3. Orlando was so poor that he was sometimes half 
naked. As he was a favorite of the boys, one day four 
of them brought some cloth to make him clothes. Tw^o 
brought white and two red ; and from this circumstance 
Orlando took his coat of -arms, or quarterings. 

4. When Charlemagne was on his way to Rome, to 
receive the imperial crown, he dined in public in Sutri. 
Orlando and his mother that day had nothing to eat, and 
Orlando, coming suddenly upon the royal party, and see- 
ing abundance of provisions, seized from the attendants 
as much as he could carry off, and made good his retreat 
in spite of their resistance. 

5. The emperor, being told of this incident, was re- 
minded of an intimation he had received in a dream, and 



50 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

ordered the boy to be followed. This was done by three 
of the knights, whom Orlando would have encountered 
with a cudgel on their entering the grotto, had not his 
mother restrained him. When they heard from her who 
she was, they threw themselves at her feet, and promised 
to obtain her pardon from the emperor. This was easily 
effected. Orlando was received into favor by the em- 
peror, returned with him to France, and so distinguished 
himself that he became the most powerful support of the 
throne and of Christianity. 

6. On another occasion, Orlando encountered a puis- 
sant Saracen warrior, and took from him, as the prize of 
victory, the sword Durindana. This famous weapon had 
once belonged to the illustrious prince Hector of Troy. It 
was of the finest workmanship, and of such strength and 
temper that no armor in the world could stand against it. 

Y. Guerin de Montglave held the lordship of Yienne, 
subject to Charlemagne. He had quarreled with his sov- /| 
ereign, and Charles laid siege to his city, having ravaged i \ 
the neighboring country. Guerin was an aged warrior, j 
but relied for his defense upon his four sons and two 
grandsons, who were among the bravest knights of the 
age. After the siege had continued two months, Charle- 
magne received tidings that Marsilius, King of Spain, had 
invaded France, and, finding himself unopposed, was ad- 
vancing rapidly in the southern provinces. At this in- 
telHgence, Charles listened to the counsel of his peers, 
and consented to put the quarrel with Guerin to the de- 
cision of Heaven, by single combat between two knights, 
one of each party, selected by lot. 

8. The proposal was acce]3table to Guerin and his sons. 
The name of the four, together with Guerin's own, who 
would not be excused, and of the two grandsons, who 
claimed their lot, being put into a helmet, Oliver's was 



LEGENDS. 61 

drawn forth, and to him, the youngest of the grandsons, 
was assigned the honor and the peril of the combat. He 
accepted the award with dehght, exulting in being thought 
worthy to maintain the cause of his family. On Charle- 
magne's side Roland was designated champion, and 
neither he nor Oliver knew who his antagonist was to be. 

9. They met on an island in the Ehone, and the war- 
riors of both camps were ranged on either shore, spec- 
tators of the battle. At the first encounter both lances 
were shivered, but both riders kept their seats immov- 
able. They dismounted and drew their swords. Then 
ensued a combat which seemed so equal, that the spec- 
tators could not form an opinion as to the probable issue. 
Two hours and more the knights continued to strike and 
parry, to thrust and ward, neither showing any sign of 
weariness, nor ever being taken at unawares. 

10. At length Orlando struck furiously upon Oliver's 
shield, burying Durindana in its edge so deeply that he 
could not draw it back, and Oliver, almost at the same 
moment, thrust so vigorously upon Orlando's breastplace 
that his sword snapped oU at the handle. Thus were the 
two warriors left weaponless. Scarcely pausing a moment, 
they rushed upon one another, each striving to throw his 
adversary to the ground, and, failing in that, each snatched 
at the other's helmet to tear it away. Both succeeded, 
and at the same moment they stood bareheaded face to 
face, and Roland recognized Oliver, and Oliver Roland. 
For a moment they stood still ; and the next, with open 
arms, rushed into one another's embrace. "I am con- 
quered," said Orlando. "I yield me," said Oliver. 

11. The people on the shore knew not what to make 
of all this. Presently they saw the two late antagonists 
standing hand-in-hand, and it was evident the battle was 
at an end. The knights crowded around them, and with 



52 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

one voice hailed them as equal in glory. If there were 
any who felt disposed to murmur that the battle was left 
undecided, they were silenced by the voice of Ogier the 
Dane, who proclaimed aloud that all had been done that 
honor required, and declared that he would maintain that 
award against all gainsay ers. 

12. The quarrel with Guerin and his sons being left 
undecided, a truce was made for four days, and in that 
time, by the efforts of Duke N"amo on the one side, and of 
Oliver on the other, a reconciliation was effected. Char- 
lemagne, accompanied by Guerin and his valiant family, 
marched to meet Marsilius, who hastened to retreat across 
the frontier. 

Bullfinch. 



XVI. -THE LEGEJs^B OF MACBETH. 

1. Soon after the Scots and Picts had become one 
people, there was a king of Scotland called Duncan, a very 
good old man. He had two sons, Malcolm and Donald- 
bane. But King Duncan was to old to lead out his army 
to battle, and his sons were too young to help him. E^ow 
it happened that a great fleet of Danes came to Scotland 
and landed their men in Fife and threatened to take pos- 
session of that province. So a numerous Scottish army 
was levied to go out to fight with them. The king in- 
trusted the command to Macbeth, a near kinsman. 

2. This Macbeth, who was a brave soldier, put him- 
self at the head of the Scottish army and marched against 
the Danes. And he took with him a near relative of his 
own called Banquo, a brave and successful soldier. There 
was a great battle fought between the Danes and the 
Scots, and Macbeth and Banquo defeated the Danes and 



LEGENDS. 53 

drove them back to tlieir ships, lea\dng a great many of 
their soldiers killed and womided. Then Macbeth and 
his army marched back to Forres in the north of Scot- 
land, rejoicing on account of their victory. 

3. Xow, at this time, there lived in the town of Forres 
three old women, whom people thought were witches, 
and supposed they could tell what was to come to pass. 
These old women went and stood by the way-side, in a 
great moor near Forres, and waited until Macbeth came 
up. And then stepping before him as he was marching 
at the head of his soldiers the first woman said, " All hail 
Macbeth ! hail to the Thane of Glamis ! " The second said, 
" All hail to the Thane of Cawdor ! " Then the third 
wishing to pay him a higher compliment, said : " All 
hail Macbeth, that shall be King of Scotland ! " While 
Macbeth stood wondering what they could mean, Banquo 
stepped forward and asked if they had not something 
good to say to him. And they said he should not be so 
great as Macbeth, yet his children should succeed to the 
throne of Scotland and reign for a great number of years. 

4. Before Macbeth had recovered from his surprise, 
there came a messenger to tell him that his father was 
dead ; so that, he was Thane of Glamis ; and then came 
a second messenger from the king to thank Macbeth for 
the great victory over the Danes, and to tell him that the 
Thane of Cawdor had rebelled against the king, and that 
the king had taken his office from him, and had sent to 
make Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth, seeing that 
a part of their words came true, began to think how he 
might become king as the three old women had predicted. 
Now Lady Macbeth was a very wicked woman, and she 
showed Macbeth that the only way to become king was 
to kill good King Duncan. At first Macbeth would not 
listen to her, but at last his ambition to be king became 



54 



STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 




SO great that lie re- 
solved to murder his kins- 
man and best friend. 

5. To accomplish his 
pm-pose he invited King 
Duncan to visit him in his 
own castle near Inverness, 
and the king accepted the 
invitation. Macbeth and his 
lady received their distin- 
guished guests with great 
seeming joy and made for 
them a great feast. At the 
close of the feast the kino^ 

retired to rest, and all the other guests followed his ex- 
ample. The two personal attendants of the king whose 
duty it was to watch over him while asleep, were pur- 
posely made drunk by Lady Macbeth, and they fell upon 
their couch in a profound slumber. 

6. Then Macbeth came into King Duncan's room 
about two o'clock in the morning. It was a terrible 
stormy night, but the noise of the wind and the thunder 
could not awaken the king, as he was old and weary with 



Macbeth. 



LEGENDS. 55 

his journey ; neither could it awaken the two sentinels. 
They all slept soundly. So Macbeth stepped gently over 
the floor and took the two dirks which belonged to the 
sentinels and stabbed poor old King Duncan to the heart, 
so he died without a groan. Then Macbeth put the bloody 
daggers into the hands of the sleeping sentinels and daubed 
their hands and faces with blood. Macbeth was fright- 
ened at what he had done, but his wife made him wash 
his hands and go to bed. 

7. Early in the morning the nobles and gentlemen 
who attended on the king assembled in the great hall of 
the castle, and then they began to talk of what a dreadful 
storm there had been the night before. They waited for 
some time, but finding the king did not come out, one of 
the noblemen went to see whether he was well or not. 
But when he came into the room he found King Dun- 
can dead, and went back and spread the alarm. The 
Scottish nobles were greatly enraged at the sight, and 
Macbeth made believe he was more enraged than any of 
them, and drawing his sword he killed the two attend- 
ants of the king, still heavy with sleep in consequence 
of the drink furnished by Lady Macbeth the night be- 
fore. 

8. Malcolm and Donaldbane, the two sons of Duncan, 
when they saw their father dead, iied from the castle, as 
they believed that Macbeth had committed the murder. 
Malcolm, the eldest son, made his way to the English court, 
and solicited aid to get possession of his father's throne. 
In the mean time Macbeth took possession of the kingdom 
of Scotland. The remembrance of his great crime con- 
tinually haunted him, and he became so sleepless as to be 
nearly insane. He remembered that the witches had 
said that the children of Banquo should reign as kings in 
Scotland, and he became terribly jealous of his old friend 



56 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

and companion. At last he hired ruffians to waylay 
Eanquo and his sons and murder them. The scheme was 
partially successful — Ban quo was killed but the sons es- 
caped, and from him descended a long line of the early 
Scottish kings. 

9. But Macbeth was not more happy after he had 
slain his friend and cousin Banquo. He knew that peo- 
ple began to suspect him of his evil deeds, and he was 
constantly afraid that some of his nobles would treat him 
as he treated King Duncan. In his perplexity he sought 
the three witches he had met before, to ask them what 
was to happen to him in the future. They answered 
him that he should not be conquered or lose the crown of 
Scotland until a great forest, called Birnam Wood should 
come to attack him in his strong castle on Dunsinane 
hill. As the distance between the two was twelve miles 
apart, Macbeth thought it was impossible that the trees 
should ever come to assault him in his castle. He imme- 
diately summoned all his nobles to assist him in strength- 
ening his castle at Dunsinane. All the nobles were 
obliged to furnish oxen and horses to drag the heavy 
stones and logs used on the fortification up the steep 
hill. 

10. One day Macbeth noticed a pair of oxen so tired 
with their burden that they fell down under their load. 
Upon inquiry he learned that they belonged to Macduff, 
the Thane of Fife. The king, who was jealous of Mac- 
duff, flew into a great rage and declared that '^ since the 
Thane of Fife sends such worthless cattle as these to do 
my labor, I will put his own neck into the yoke, and 
make him drag the burden himself." A friend of Mac- 
duff who heard this speech hastened to the king's castle 
and informed Macduff who was walking about while the 
dinner was preparing. 



LEGENDS. 57 

11. Macduff snatched a loaf of bread from the table, 
called for his horses and servants, and galloped off toward 
his own castle of Kennoway in Fife. When Macbeth re- 
turned he first asked what had become of Macduff, and 
being informed that he had fled from Dunsinane, Mac- 
beth put himself at the head of a large force of his guards, 
and immediately pursued. Macduff reached his castle 
which is built upon the shore of the sea, a little in ad- 
vance of the king. He ordered his wife to shut the gates 
of the castle and pull up the drawbridge, and on no ac- 
count permit the king or any of his soldiers to enter. In 
the mean time he went aboard a small ship and put out to 
sea. 

12. Macbeth then summoned the lady to open the 
gates and deliver up her husband. " Do you see," said 
she, " yon white sail upon the sea ? Yonder goes Macduff* 
to the court of England. You will never see him again 
until he comes with young Prince Malcolm to pull you 
down from the throne and put you to death. You will 
never be able to put your yoke upon the neck of the 
Thane of Fife." 

■ 13. Some say that Macbeth was so enraged at the es- 
cape of Macduff that he stormed and took the castle, and 
put to death the wife and children of Macduff. But 
others say that Macbeth turned back from the strong cas- 
tle and its brave defenders, and returned to his own home 
at Dunsinane. Macduff readily found Prince Malcolm 
and the English king, fitted them out with an army. 
Upon entering Scotland a large share of the nobles de- 
serted Macbeth and joined the forces of Malcolm. The 
army marched as far as Birnam Wood where they en- 
camped to rest and recuperate. 

14. Macbeth, in the mean time, shut himself up in 
his castle, where he thought himself safe according to 



68 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

the old woman's prophecy, "until Birnam Wood should 
advance against him, and this he never expected to see. 
Malcolm's army having entirely recovered their strength 
and vigor, at length were ready to march. As they were 
about to start, Macduff advised each soldier to cut down 
the bough of a tree and carry it so as to conceal the 
strength of the army as they crossed the valley. The 
sentinel on the castle walls saw all these green boughs ad- 
vancing, ran to Macbeth and informed him that the wood 
of Birnam was moving toward the castle of Dunsinane. 
The king at first called him a liar and threatened to put 
him to death ; but when he looked from the walls him- 
self, and saw the appearance of a forest approaching from 
Birnam, he remembered the prediction, and felt that the 
hour of his destruction had come. 

15. His followers were also superstitious and began 
to desert him. But Macbeth, at the head of those who 
remained true to him sallied out, and was killed in a 
hand-to-hand conflict with Macduff. This story, a tradi- 
tion, is told by Sir Walter Scott, and forms the founda- 
tion of Shakespeare's tragedy of '' Macbeth." 



OLD BALLADS. 



■XriL-CHE VY-CHASE, 

1. God prosper long our noble king, 

Our lives and safeties all ; 
A woful hunting once there did 
In Chevy- Chase befall. 

2. The stout Earl of Northumberland 

A vow to God did make, 
His pleasure in the Scottish woods 
Three summer days to take — 

3. The chief est harts in Chevj-Chase 

To kill and bear away. 
These tidings to Earl Douglas came. 
In Scotland where he lay ; 

4. Who sent Eai-1 Percy present word 

He would prevent his sport. 
The English earl, not fearing that, 
Did to the woods resort, 

5. With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, 

All chosen men of might, 
Who knew full well in time of need 
To aim their shafts aright. 



60 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

6. The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran 
To chase the fallow deer ; 
On Monday they began to hunt 
When daylight did appear ; 

1. And long before high noon they had 
A hundred fat bucks slain ; 
Then, having dined, the drovers went 
To rouse the deer again. 

8. Lord Percy to the quarry went, 

To view the slaughtered deer ; 
Quoth he, " Earl Douglas promised 
This day to meet me here ; 

9. '^ But if I thought he w^ould not come — 

Ko longer would I stay " ; 
With that a brave young gentleman 
Thus to the earl did say : 

10. " Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come — 

His men in armor bright. 
Full twenty hundred Scottish spears 
All marching in our sight." 

11. Earl Douglas on his milk-white steed, 

Most like a baron bold, 
Rode foremost of his company. 
Whose armor shone like gold. 

12. " Show me," said he, " whose men you be, 

That hunt so boldly here, 
That, without my consent, do chase 
And kill my fallow-deer." 

13. The first man that did answer make 

Was noble Percy he— 
Who said : " We list not to declare, 
]^or show whose men we be : 



OLD BALLADS, 61 

14. "Yet will we spend our dearest blood 

Thy chief est harts to slay." 
Then Douglas swore a solemn oath, 
And thus in rage did say : 

15. " Ere thus I will out-braved be, 

One of us two shall die ! 
I know thee well, an earl thou art — 
Lord Percy, so am I. 

16. " Let you and me the battle try. 

And set our men aside." 
" Accursed be he," Earl Percy said, 
" By whom this is denied ! " 

17. Then stepped a gallant squire forth, 

Witherington was his name. 
Who said : "I would not have it told 
To Henry, our king, for shame, 

18. " That e'er my captain fought on foot, 

And I stood looking on. 
You two be earls," said Witherington, 
" And I a scpire alone. 

19. '' ril do the best that do I may. 

While I have power to stand ; 
While I have power to wield my sword 
ril fight with heart and hand." 

20. Our English archers bent their bows — 

Their hearts were good and true ; 
At the first flight of arrows sent. 
Full fourscore Scots they slew, 

21. Yet stays Earl Douglas on the bent, 

As chieftain stout and good ; 
As valiant captain, all unmoved. 
The shock he firmly stood. 



62 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

22. His host he parted had in three, 

As leaders ware and tried ; 
And soon his spearmen on their foes 
Bore down on every side. 

23. At last these two stoat earls did meet ; 

Like captains of great might, 
Like lions wode, they laid on lode, 
And made a cruel fight. 

24. " Yield thee. Lord Percy," Douglas said, 

" In faith I will thee bring 
Where thou shalt high advanced be 
By James, our Scottish king. 

25. " Thy ransom I will freely give, 

And this report of thee — 
Thou art the most courageous knight 
That ever I did see." 

26. " Ko, Douglas," saith Earl Percy then, 

" Thy proffer I do scorn ; 

I will not yield to any Scot 

That ever yet was born." 

27. With that there came an arrow keen 

Out of an English bow. 
Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart — 
A deep and deadly blow ; 

28. Who never spake more words than these i 

" Fight on, my merry men all ; 
For why, my life is at an end ; 
Lord Percy sees my fall." 

29. Then leaving life. Earl Percy took 

The dead man by the hand. 
And said : " Earl Douglas, for thy life 
Would I had lost my land ! 



OLD BALLADS. 

30. " In truth, my very becart doth bleed 

AVith sori'ow for thy sake ; 
For sure a more redoubted knight 
Mischance did never make." 

31. A kniglit amongst the Scots there was 

Who saw Earl Doughis die, 
Who straight in wrath did vow revenge 
Upon the Earl Percy. 

32. Sir Ilugli Mountgomery was he called, 

Who with a spear full bright, 
Well mounted on a gallant steed, 
Ran fiercely through the fight ; 

33. And past the English archers all. 

Without a dread or fear. 
And through Earl Percy's body then 
He thrust his hateful spear. 

34. So thus did both these nobles die. 

Whose courage none could stain. 
An English archer then perceived 
The noble earl was slain. 

35. Against Sir Hugh Mountgomery 

To right a shaft he set ; 
The gray goose-wing that was thereon 
In his heart's blood was wet. 

36. This fight did last from break of day 

Till setting of the sun ; 
For when they rung the evening-bell 

The battle scarce was done. 
3Y. Of fifteen hundred Englishmen 

Went home but fifty-three ; 
The rest in Chevy-Chase were slain, 

Under the greenwood-tree. 



64 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. \ 

38. The news was brought to Eclinburg, 

Where Scotland's king did reign, :. 

That brave Earl Douglas suddenly i| 

Was with an arrow slain. 

39. " Oh, heavy news ! " King James did say ; 

" Scotland can witness be, 
I have not any captain more 
Of such account as he." 

40. Like tidings to King Henry came 

Within as short a Sj^ace, 
That Percy of Northumberland 
Was slain in Chevy-Chase : 

41. "E"ow God be with him," said our king, 

^' Since 'twill no better be ; 
I trust I have within my realm 
Five hundred as good as he : 

42. " Yet shall not Scot or Scotland say 

But I will vengeance take ; 
I'll be revenged on them all 
For brave Earl Percy's sake ! " 

43. This vow full well the king performed 

After at Humbledown : 
In one day fifty knights were slain. 
With lords of high renown ; 

44. And of the rest, of small account, 

Did many hundreds die : 
Thus endeth the hunting of Chevy-Chase, 
Made by the Earl Percy. 

45. God save the king and bless this land 

With plenty, joy, and peace ; 
And grant, henceforth, that foul debate 
^Twixt noblemen may cease ! 

Old Ballad. 



OLD BALLADS. 66 



XVIII -VALEJ^TIJ^E AJYD UESIJVK 

1. When Flora 'gins to deck the fields 

AVitli colors fresli and line, 
Then holy clerks their matins sing 
To good St. Valentine. 

2. The King of France, that morning fair, 

lie would a-hunting ride, 
To Artois Forest prancing forth 
In all his princely pride. 

3. To grace his sports a courtly train 

Of gallant peers attend, 
And with their loud and cheerful cries 
The hills and valleys rend. 

4. Through the deep forest swift they pass, 

Through woods and thickets wild, 
"When down within a lonely dell 
They found a new-born child. 

5. All in a scarlet kerchief laid, 

Of silk so line and thin, 
A golden mantle wrapt him round. 
Pinned with a silver pin. 

6. The sudden sight surprised them all. 

The courtiers gathered round ; 
They look, they call, the mother seek — 
No mother could be found. 

7. At length the king himself drew near, 

And, as he gazing stands. 
The pretty babe looked up and smiled. 
And stretched his little hands. 



ee STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

8. "Now, bj the rood," King Pepin says, 

" This child is passing fair ; 
I wot he is of gentle blood. 
Perhaps some prince's heir. 

9. " Go, bear him home unto my court, 

With all the care you may, 
Let him be christened Valentine, 
In honor of this day. 

10. " And look me out some cunning nurse, 

Well nurtured let him be ; 
Nor aught be wanting that becomes 
A bairn of high degree." 

11. They looked him out a cunning nurse, 

And nurtured well was he ; 
ISTor aught was wanting that became 
A bairn of high degree. 

12. Thus grew the little Yalentine, 

Beloved of king and peers. 
And showed in all he spake or did 
A wit beyond his years. 

13. But chief in gallant feats of arms 

He did himself advance, 
That, ere he grew to man's estate, 
He had no peer in France. 

14. And now the early down began 

To shade his youthful chin, 
When Valentine was dubbed a knight. 
That he might glory win. 

15. " A boon, a boon, my gracious liege, 

I beg a boon of thee : 
The first adventure that befalls 
May be reserved for me." 



OLD BALLADS. 67 

16. " The first adventure shall be thine," 

The king did smiling say. 
Not many days, when lo ! there came 
Three palmers clad in gray. 

17. " Help, gracious lord," they weeping said, 

And knelt, as it was meet ; 
" From Artois Forest we are come, 
With weak and weary feet. 

18. " Within those deep and dreary woods 

There dwells a savage boy, 
Whose fierce and mortal rage doth yield 
Thy subjects dire annoy. 

19. " To more than savage strength he joins 

A more than human skill ; 
For arms no cunning may suffice 
His cruel rage to still." 

20. Up then rose Sir Valentine 

And claimed that arduous deed. 
" Go forth and conquer," said the king, 
" And great shall be thy meed." 

21. Well mounted on a milk-white steed, 

His armor white as snow, 
As well beseemed a virgin knight. 
Who ne'er had fought a foe — 

22. To Artois Forest he repairs. 

With all the liaste he may, 
And soon he spies the savage youth 
A-rending of his prey ! 

23. His unkempt hair all matted hung 

His shaggy shoulders round ; 
His eager eye all fiery glowed. 
His face with fury frowned. 



68 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

24. Like eagle's talons grew liis nails, 

His limbs were thick and strong, 
And dreadful was the knotted oak 
He bare with him along. 

25. Soon as Sir Valentine approached, 

He starts with sudden spring, 
And yelling forth a hideous howl, 
He made the forest ring. 

26. As when a tiger fierce and fell 

Hath spied a passing roe, 
And leaps at once upon liis throat. 
So sprang the savage foe. 

27. So lightly leaped with furious force^ 

Tiie gentle knight to seize. 
But met his tall uplifted spear, 
Which sank him on his knees. 

28. A second stroke, so stiff and stern, 

Had laid the savage low ; 
But, springing up, he raised his club, 
And aimed a dreadful blow. 

29. The watchful warrior bent his head, 

And shunned the coming stroke ; 
Upon his taper spear it fell. 
And all to shivers broke. 

30. Then, lighting nimbly from his steeds 

He drew his burnished brand ; 
The savage quick as lightning flew 
To wrest it from his hand. 

31. Three times he grasped the silver hilt, 

Three times he felt the blade ; 
Three times it fell with furious force. 
Three ghastly cuts it made. 



OLD BALLADS. 




" To court his hairy captive soon 
Sir Valentine doth bring, 
And, hieeling down upon his knee, 
Preseiits him to the king^ 



TO STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

32. ]N^ow with redoubled rage he roared, 

His eyeballs flashed with lire, 
Each hairy limb with fury shook, 
And all his heart was ire. 

33. But soon the knight, with active spring, 

O'erturned his hairy foe. 
And now between their sturdy fists 
Passed many a bruising blow. 

34. Bat brutal force and savage strength 

To art and skill must yield; 
Sir Valentine at length prevailed. 
And won the well-fought field. 

35. Then binding straight his conquered foe 

Fast with an iron chain, 
He ties him to his horse's tail. 
And leads him o'er the plain. 

36. To court his hairy captive soon 

Sir Valentine doth bring. 
And, kneeling down upon his knee. 
Presents him to the king. 

37. With loss of blood and loss of strength. 

The savage tamer grew, 

And to Sir Valentine became 

A servant tried and true. 

38. And, 'cause with bears he first was bred, 

Ursine they called his name — 
A name which unto future times 
The Muses shall proclaim. 

Old Ballad. 




>>^5/^>^2>^5/2/^>^/^5/^/2/3>^9>^S/^/S/a/e/2/$/e/^^ 



EAELY EASTERN EEOORD. 



XIX-SEMJfACHERIB. 

1. Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, 
saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, that which 
thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of As- 
syria I have heard. 

2. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken con- 
cerning him ; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath de- 
spised thee, and laughed thee to scorn ; the daughter of 
Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee. 

3. Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and 
against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up 
thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. 

4. By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, 
and hast said. With the multitude of my chariots, I am 
come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of 
Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar-trees thereof, 
and the choice -fir-trees thereof : and I will enter into the 
lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel. 

4 



72 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

5. I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with 
the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of be- 
sieged places. 

6. Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, 
and of ancient times that I have formed it ? now have I 
brought it to pass, that thou shonldest be to lay waste 
fenced cities into ruinous heaps. 

7. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, 
they were dismayed and confounded ; they were as the 
grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on 
the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up. 

8. But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy 
coming in, and thy rage against me. 

9. Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come 
up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy 
nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back 
by the way by which thou camest. 

10. And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat 
this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the 
second year that which springeth of the same ; and in the 
third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat 
the fruits thereof. 

11. And the remnant that is escaped of the house of 
Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit 
upward. 

12. For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, 
and they that escape out of Mount Zion : the zeal of the 
Lord of hosts shall do this. 

13. Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the 
king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor 
shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, 
nor cast a bank against it. 

14. By the way that he came, by the same shall he 
return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord. 



EAELY EASTERN RECORD. 73 

15. For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine 
own sake, and for my servant David's sake. 

16. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of 
the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyr- 
ians a hundred fourscore and five thousand ; and when 
they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all 
dead corpses, 

17. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and 
went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. 

II Kings, xix,20-36. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. 

1. The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls niglitly on deep Galilee. 

2. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with its banners at sunset was seen ; 

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 

3. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast^ 
And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill. 
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew 

still. 

4. And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide, 
But through them there rolled not the breath of his 

pride ; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 



74 



STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



5, And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, 

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail ; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone. 
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 




And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote bj the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord. 

Byron. 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 



75 



XX^-GLAUCOJ^. 



1. When Glaiicon, tlie son of Ariston, attempted to 
harangue the people, from a desire, tlioiigh he was not 
yet twenty years of age, to have a share in the govern- 
ment of the state, no one of his relatives, or other friends, 
could prevent him from getting himself dragged down 
from the tribunal and making himself ridiculous ; but 
Socrates, who had a friendly feeling toward him on ac- 
count of Charmides, the son of Glaucon, as well as on 
account of Plato, succeeded in prevailing on him, by his 
sole dissuasion, to relinquish his purpose. 

2. Meeting him by chance, he first stopped him by 
addressing him as follows, that he might be wnlling to 
listen to him : '* Glaucon," said he, " have you formed an 
intention to govern the state for 

us ? " "I have, Socrates," replied 
Glaucon. " By Jupiter," rejoined 
Socrates, '' it is an honorable office, 
if any other among men be so ; 
for it is certain that, if yon at- 
tain your object, you will be able 
yourself to secure whatever you 
may desire, and will be in a con- 
dition to benefit your friends; 
you will raise your father's house, 
and increase the power of your 
country ; you will be celebrated 
first of all in your own city, and 
afterward throughout Greece, and 
perhaps, also, like Themistocles, 
among the barbarians, and, wher- 
ever you may be, you will be an object of general admira- 
tion." Glaucon, hearing this, was highly elated, and 




Socrates. 



76 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

clieerfuUy stayed to listen. Socrates next proceeded to 
say : " But it is plain, Glaucon, tliat if yon wish to be 
honored, you must bene tit the state." '' Certainly," an- 
swered Glaucon. " Then, in the name of the gods," said 
Socrates, '^ do not hide from us how you intend to act, 
but inform us with what proceeding you will begin to 
benefit the state." But as Glaucon was- silent, as if just 
considering how he should begin, Socrates said: "As, if 
you wished to aggrandize the family of a friend, you 
would endeavor to make it richer, tell me whether you 
will in like manner also endeavor to make the state 
richer?" "Assuredly," said he. "Would it then be 
richer, if its revenues were increased ? " " That is at least 
probable," said Glaucon. " Tell me then," proceeded 
Socrates, " from what the revenues of the state arise, 
and what is their amount ; for you have doubtless con- 
sidered, in order that if any of them fall short, you 
may make up the deficiency, and that if any of them 
fail, you may procure fresh supplies." " These matters, 
by Jupiter," replied Glaucon, " I have not considered." 

3. " Well, then," said Socrates, " if you have omitted 
to consider this point, tell me at least the annual expendi- 
ture of the state ; for you undoubtedly mean to retrench 
whatever is superfluous in it." " Indeed," replied Glau- 
con, " I have not yet had time to turn my attention to 
that subject," "We will therefore," said Socrates, "put 
off making our state richer for the present ; for how is it 
possible for him who is ignorant of its expenditure and 
its income to manage those matters?" 

4. " But Socrates," observed Glaucon, " it is possible 
to enrich the state at the expense of our enemies." " Ex- 
tremely possible, indeed," replied Socrates, " if we be 
stronger than they ; but if we be weaker, we may lose all 
that we have." " What you say is true," said Glaucon. 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 



77 



5. "Accordingly," said Socrates, "he who deliber- 
ates with whom he shall go to war, ought to know the 
force both of his own country and of the ene- 
my, so that, if that of his own country be su- 
^^^ perior to that of the enemy, he may 

^<^^" advise it to enter upon the war, but if 



-V 



ilx V 




Socrates and Glaucon. 



inferior, may persuade it to be cautious of doing so." 
" You say rightly," said Glaucon. 

6. " In the first place, then," proceeded Socrates, " tell 



78 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

us the strength of the country by land and sea, and next 
that of the enemy." " But, by Jupiter," exclaimed Glau- 
con, " I should not be able to tell you on the moment, and 
at a word." " Well, then, if you have it written down," 
said Socrates, " bring it, for I should be extremely glad 
to hear what it is." " But, to say the truth," replied 
Glaucon, " I liave not yet written it down." 

7. " We will therefore put off considering about war 
for the present," said Socrates, " for it is very likely that 
on account of the magnitude of these subjects, and as you 
are just commencing your administration, you have not 
yet examined into them. But to the defense of the coun- 
try, I am quite sure that you have directed your atten- 
tion, and that you know how many garrisons are in ad- 
vantageous positions, and how many not so, what number 
of men would be sufficient to maintain them, and what 
number would be insufficient, and that you will advise 
your countrymen to make the garrisons in advantageous 
positions stronger, and to remove the useless ones," 

8. " By Jove," replied Glaucon, '^ I shall recommend 
them to remove them all, as they keep guard so negli- 
gently, that the property is secretly carried off out of the 
country." " Yet, if we remove the garrisons," said So- 
crates, " do you not think that liberty will be given to 
anybody that pleases to pillage ? But," added he, " have 
you gone personally and examined as to this fact, or 
how do you know that the garrisons conduct themselves 
with such negligence ? " "I form my conjectures," 
said he. " Well, then," inquired Socrates, " shall we 
settle about these matters also, when we no longer rest 
upon conjecture, but have obtained certain knowl- 
edge ? " '^ Perhaps that," said Glaucon, " will be the better 
course." 

9. " To the silver-mines, however," continued Socrates, 



{ 



EAELT EASTERN RECORD. 79 

" I know that you have not gone, so as to have the means 
of telling us why a smaller revenue is derived from them 
than came in some time ago." " I have not gone thither," 
said he. " Indeed, the place," said Socrates, " is said to 
be unhealthy, so that when it is necessary to bring it un- 
der consideration, this will be a sufficient excuse for you." 
'' You jest with me," said Glaucon. " I am sure, how- 
ever," proceeded Socrates, " that you have not neglected 
to consider, but have calculated, how long the corn which 
is produced in the country, will suffice to maintain the 
city, and how much it requires for the year, in order that 
the city may not suffer from scarcity unknown to you, 
but that, from your own knowledge, you may be able, by 
giving your advice concerning the necessaries of life, to 
support the city and preserve it." ''You propose a vast 
field for me," observed Glaucon, " if it will be necessary 
for me to attend to such subjects." 

10. " Nevertheless," proceeded Socrates, " a man can 
not order his house properly, unless he ascertains all that 
it requires, and takes care to supply it with everything 
necessary ; but since the city consists of more than ten 
thousand houses, and since it is difficult to provide for so 
many at once, how is it that you have not tried to aid one 
first of all, suppose that of your imcle, for it stands in 
need of help ? If you be able to assist that one, you may 
proceed to assist more ; but if you be unable to benefit 
one, how will you be able to benefit many ? Just as it is 
plain that, if a man can not carry the weight of a talent, 
he need not attempt to carry a greater weight ? " 

11. "But I would improve my uncle's house," said 
Glaucon, " if he would but be persuaded by me." " And 
then," resumed Socrates, " when you can not persuade 
your uncle, do you expect to make all the Athenians, to- 
gether with your uncle, yield to your arguments ? 



80 STORIES OF THE OLDER TIME. 

12. " Take care, Glaucon, lest, while you are eager to 
acquire glory, you meet with the reverse of it. Do you 
not see how dangerous it is for a person to speak of, or 
undertake, what he does not understand ? Contemplate, 
among other men, such as you know to be characters that 
plainly talk of, and attempt to do, what they do not know, 
and consider whether they appear to you, by such con- 
duct, to obtain more applause or censure, whether they 
seem to be more admired or despised 1 

13. " Contemplate, again, those who have some under- 
standing of what they say and do, and you will find, I 
think, in all transactions, that such as are praised and ad- 
mired are of the number of those who have most knowl- 
edge, and that those who incur censure and neglect are 
among those that have least. 

14. "If, therefore, you desire to gain esteem and repu- 
tation in your country, endeavor to succeed in gaining a 
knowledge of what you wish to do ; for if, when you ex- 
cel others in this qualification, you proceed to manage the 
affairs of the state, I shall not wonder if you very easily 
obtain what you desire." 

Xenophon. 



XXI -CYRUS AJVD HIS GBAJ^DFATHER. 

1. When Cyrus was twelve years old, his mother 
Mandana took him with her into Media to his grand- 
father Astyages, who, from the many things he had 
heard in favor of the young prince, had a great desire to 
see him. In this court young Cyrus found very different 
manners from those of his own country : pride, luxury, 
and magnificence reigned here universally. Astyages 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 81 

LimseK was richly clothed, had his eyes colored, his face 
painted, and his hair embellished with artificial locks ; 
for the Medes affected an effeminate life — to be dressed 
in scarlet and to wear necklaces and bracelets — whereas 
the habits of the Persians were very plain and coarse. 

2. All this finery had no effect upon Cyras, who, 
without criticising or condemning what he saw, was con- 
tent to live as he had been brought up, and adhered to 
the principles he had imbibed from his infancy. He 
charmed his grandfather with his sprightliness and wit, 
and gained the favor of all by his noble and engaging be- 
liavior. I shall only mention one instance, whereby we 
may judge of the rest. A sty ages, to make his grandson 
unwilling to return home, made a sumptuous entertain- 
ment, in which there was a vast plenty and profusion of 
everything that was nice and delicate. Cyrus looked 
upon all this exquisite cheer and magnificent preparation 
with great indifference, and, observing that it excited the 
surprise of Astyages, "The Persians," says he to the 
king, " instead of going such a roundabout way to appease 
their hunger, have a much shoi-ter one to the same end : 
a little bread and cresses with them answer the purpose." 

3. Astyages desiring Cyrus to dispose of all the meats 
as he thought fit, the latter immediately distributed them 
to the king's officers-in-waiting : to one, because he taught 
him to ride ; to another, because he waited well upon his 
grandfather ; and to a third, because he took great care 
of his mother. Sacas, the king's cup-bearer, was the only 
person to whom he gave nothing. This officer, besides 
the post of cup-bearer, had that likewise of introducing 
those who were to have audience with the king ; and, as 
he could not possibly grant that favor to C}tus as often 
as he desired it, he had the misfortune to displease the 
prince, who took this occasion to show his resentment. 



82 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

4. Astyages, manifesting some concern at the neglect 
of this officer, for whom he had a particular regard, and 
who deserved it, as he said, on account of the w^onderful 
dexterity with which he served him — " Is that all, 
father ? " replied Cyrus ; " if that be sufficient to merit 
your favor, you shall see 1 will quickly obtain it ; for I 
will take upon me to serve you better than he." Cyrus 
immediately equipped as a cup-bearer, and advancing 
gravely with a serious countenance, a napkin upon his 
shoulder, and holding the cup nicely with three of his 
fingers, presented it to the king with a dexterity and a 
grace that charmed both Astyages and Mandana. When 
he had done he threw himself upon his grandfather's 
neck, and, kissing him, cried out with great joy : " O 
Sacas ! poor Sacas ! thou art undone ; I shall have thy 
place ! " 

5. Astyages embraced him with great fondness, and 
said : " I am highly pleased, my dear child ; nobody can 
serve me with a better grace ; but you have forgot one 
essential ceremony, which is that of tasting '' ; and, in- 
deed, the cup-bearer was used to pour some of the liquor 
into his left hand, and to taste it, before he presented it 
to the king. ''IN'o," replied Cyrus, "it was not through 
forgetfulness that I omitted that ceremony." "Why, 
then," says Astyages, "for what reason did you not do 
it ? " " Because I apprehended there was poison in the 
liquor." "Poison, child! How could you think so?" 
" Yes, poison, father, for not long ago, at an entertain- 
ment you gave to the lords of yonr court, after the guests 
had drunk a little of that liquor, I perceived all their 
heads were turned. They sang, made a noise, and talked 
they did not know what ; you yourself seemed to have 
forgotten that you were king, and they that they were 
subjects ; and when you would have danced you could 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 83 

not stand upon your legs." ^' Why," said Astyages, 
'' have you never seen the same thing happen to your 
father ? " " No, never," says Cyrus. " What, then ? 
How is it with him when he drinks 1 " '' Why, when he 
has drunk, his thirst is quenched, and that is all." 

6. Mandana being upon the point of returning to 
Persia, Cyrus joyfully complied with the repeated re- 
quests his grandfather had made to him to stay in Media ; 
being desirous, as he said, to perfect himself in the art of 
riding, which he was not yet master of, and which was 
not known in Persia, where the barrenness of the coun- 
try and its craggy, mountainous situation rendered it 
unfit for the breeding of horses. 

7. During the time of his residence at this court his 
behavior procured him infinite love and esteem. He was 
gentle, aifable, beneficent, and generous. Whenever the 
young lords had any favor to ask of the king, Cyrus was 
their solicitor. If the king had any subject of complaint 
against them, Cyrus was their mediator ; their affairs be- 
came his, and he always managed them so well that he 

obtained whatever he desired. 

Rollin. 



XXIL-CYRUS A,YD THE ARMEJ^IAJfS. 

1. The King of Armenia who was vassal to the 
Medes, looking upon them as ready to be swallowed up 
by a formidable league formed against them, thought fit 
to lay hold of this occasion to shake off their yoke. Ac- 
cordingly he refused to pay them the ordinary tribute, 
and to send them the number of troops he was obliged to 
furnish in time of war. This highly embarrassed Cyax- 



84 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

ares, who was afraid at this juncture of bringing new 
enemies upon his hands if he undertook to compel the 
Armenians to execute their treaty. 

2. But Cyrus, having informed himself exactly of the 
strength and situation of the country, undertook the affair. 
The important point was to keep his design secret, with- 
out which it was not likely to succeed. He therefore ap- 
pointed a great hunting-match on that side of the coun- 
try ; for it was his custom to ride out that way, and fre- 
quently to hunt with the king's son and the young no- 
blemen of Armenia. On the appointed day, he set out 
with a numerous retinue. The troops followed at a dis- 
tance, and were not to appear till a signal was given. 
After some days' hunting, when they had nearly reached 
the palace where the court resided, Cyrus communicated 
his design to his officers ; and sent Chrysanthes with a 
detachment, ordering them to make themselves master of 
a certain steep eminence, where he knew the king used 
to retire in case of an alarm, with his family and his 
treasures. 

3. This being done, he sent a herald to the king of 
Armenia, to summon him to perform the treaty, and in 
the mean time ordered his troops to advance. Never was 
a court in greater surprise and perplexity. The king 
was conscious of the wrong he had done, and was not in 
a condition to support it. However, he did what he 
could to assemble his forces together from all quarters ; 
and in the mean time dispatched his youngest son, called 
Stabaris, into the mountains^ with his wives, his daugh- 
ters, and whatever was most precious and valuable. But 
when he was informed by his scouts that Cyrus was close- 
ly pursuing, he entirely lost all courage, and all thoughts 
of making a defense. 

4. The Armenians, following his example, ran away, 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 85 

every one where be could, to secure what was dearest to 
him. Cyrus, seeing the country covered with people 
that were endeavoring to make their escape, sent them 
word that no harm should be done to them if they stayed 
in their houses ; but that as many as were taken running 
away should be treated as enemies. This made them all 
retire to tbeir habitations, excepting a few that followed 
the king. 

5. On the other hand, they that were conducting the 
princesses to the mountains fell into the ambush Chi-ys- 
anthes had laid for them, and were most of them taken 
prisoners. The queen, the king's son, his daughters, his 
eldest son's wife, and his treasures, all fell into the hands 
of the Persians. 

6. The king, hearing this melancholy news, and not 
knowing what would become of him, retired to a little 
eminence, where he was presently invested by the Per- 
sian army, and obliged to surrender. Cyrus ordered him 
with all his faniilv to be broug-ht to the midst of the 
army. At that very instant arrived Tigranes, the king's 
eldest son, who was just returned from a journey. At so 
moving a scene he could not forbear weeping. Cyrus, 
addressing himself to him, said : " Prince, you are come 
very seasonably to be present at the trial of your father." 
And immediately he assembled the captains of the Per- 
sians and Medes, and called in also the great men of Ar- 
menia, ^or did he so much as exclude the ladies from 
this assembly, who were there in their chariots, but gave 
them full liberty to hear and see all that passed. 

7. When all was ready and Cyrus had commanded 
silence, he began with requiring of the king, that in all 
the questions he was about to propose to him, he would 
answer sincerely, because nothing could be more un- 
worthy a person of his rank than to use dissimulation or 



86 STORIES OF THE OLDEN' TIME. 

falsehood. The king promised he would. Then Cjrus 
asked him, but at different times, proposing each article 
separately, and in oi'der, whether it was not true, that he 
had made war ujDon Astyages, King of the Medes, his 
grandfather ; whether he had not been overcome in that 
war, and in consequence of his defeat had concluded a 
treaty with Astyages ; whether by virtue of that treaty 
he was not obliged to pay a certain tribute, to furnish a 
certain number of troops, and not to keep any fortified 
place in his country. 

8. It was impossible for the king to deny any of 
these facts, which were all public and notorious. " For 
what reason, then," continued Cyrus, '' have you violated 
the treaty in every article 'I " " For no other," replied 
the king, " than because I thought it a glorious thing to 
shake off the yoke, to live free, and to leave my children 
in the same condition." " It is really glorious," answered 
Cyrus, "to fight in defense of liberty, but if any one, 
after he is reduced to servitude, should attempt to run 
away from his master, what would you do with him ? " 
" I must confess," said the king, " I would punish him." 
" And if you had given a government to one of your sub- 
jects, and he should be found to misbehave, would you 
continue him in his post?" "No, certainly; I would 
put another in his place." " And if he had amassed great 
riches by his unjust practices ? " "I would strip him of 
them." " But, which is still worse, if he had held intelli- 
gence with your enemies, how would you treat him ? " 
" Though I should pass sentence upon myself," replied 
the king, " I must declare the truth ; I would put him 
to death." At these words Tigranes tore his tiara from 
his head, and rent his garments ; the women burst out 
into lamentations and outcries, as if the sentence had 
actually passed upon him. 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 87 

9. Cjrus, having again commanded silence, Tigranes 
addressed himself to the prince to this effect : " Great 
prince, can you think it consistent with your wisdom, to 
put my father to death, even against your own interest ? " 
" How against my interest ? " replied Cyrus. " Because 
he was never so capable of doing you service." How 
do you make that appear ? Do the faults we commit en- 
hance our merit, and give us a new title to consideration 
and favor ? " " They certainly do, provided they serve 
to make us wiser ; for wisdom is of inestimable value. 
Are either riches, courage, or address to be compared to 
it ? Xow it is evident, this single day's experience has 
infinitely improved my father's wisdom. He knows how 
dear the violation of his word has cost him. He has 
proved and felt how much you are superior to him in all 
respects. He has not been able to succeed in any of his 
designs; but you have happily accomplished all yours; 
and with such expedition and secrecy that he has found 
himself surrounded and taken before he expected to be 
attacked, and the very place of his retreat has served only 
to ensnare him." 

10. "But your father," replied Cyrus, "has yet un- 
dergone no sufferings that can have taught him wisdom." 
" The fear of evils," answered Tigranes, " when it is so 
well founded as this is, has a much sharper sting, and is 
more capable of piercing the soul, than the evil itself. 
Besides, permit me to say, that gratitude is a stronger and 
more prevailing motive than any whatever; and there 
can be no obligations in the world of a higher nature 
than those you will lay upon my father — ^his fortune, 
liberty, scepter, life, wives, and children, all restored to 
him with such a generosity. Where can you find, illustri- 
ous prince, in one single person, so many strong and pow- 
erful ties to attach him to your service ? " 



88 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

11. " Well, then," replied Cyrus, turning to the king, 
"if I should yield to your son's entreaties, with what 
number of men, and what sum of money, will you assist 
us in the war against the Babylonians ? " " My troops 
and treasures," says the Armenian king, '•' are no longer 
mine; they are entirely yours. I can raise forty thousand 
foot and eight thousand horse ; and as for money, I 
reckon, including the treasure whicli my father left me, 
there are about three thousand talents ready money. All 
these are wholly at your disposal." Cyrus accepted half 
the number of the troops, and left the king the other 
half, for the defense of the country against the Chaldeans, 
with whom he was at war. 

12. The annual tribute which was due to the Medes 
he doubled, and instead of fifty talents exacted a hundred, 
and borrowed the like sum over and above in his own 
name. "But what would you give me," added Cyrus, 
" for the ransom of your wives ? " " All that I have in 
the world," replied the king. " And for the ransom of 
your children ? " " The same thing." " From this time, 
then, you are indebted to me the double of all your pos- 
sessions. And you, Tigranes, at what price would you 
redeem the liberty of your lady ? " E'ow he had lately 
married her, and was passionately fond of her. " At the 
price," said he, "of a thousand lives if I had them." 
Cyrus then conducted them all to his tent, and enter- 
tained them at supper. It is easy to imagine what trans- 
ports of joy there must have been upon this occasion. 

13. After supper, as they were discoursing upon vari- 
ous subjects, Cyrus asked Tigranes what was become of 
a governor whom he had often seen hunting with him, 
and for whom he had a particular esteem. " Alas ! " 
said Tigranes, "' he is no more ; and I dare not tell you by 
what accident I lost him." Cyrus pressed him to tell 



EARLY E ASTER JSr RECORD. 89 

him. " My father," continued Tigranes, " seeing I had a 
very tender affection for this governor, and that I was 
extremely attached to him, suspected it might be of some 
ill consequence and put him to death. But he was so 
honest a man, that as he was ready to expire, he sent for 
me and spoke to me in these words : ' Tigranes, let not 
my death occasion any dissatisfaction in you toward the 
king your father. What he has done to me did not pro- 
ceed from malice, but only from prejudice, and a false 
notion w^herewith he was unhappily blinded.' " " Oh, the 
excellent man ! " cried Cyrus, " never forget the last ad- 
vice he gave you." 

14, When the conversation was ended, Cyrus, before 
they parted, embraced them all, as in token of a perfect 
reconciliation. This done, they got into their chariots, 
with their wives, and went home full of gratitude and ad- 
miration. Nothing but Cyrus was mentioned the whole 
way ; some extolling his wisdom, others his valor ; some 
admiring the sweetness of his temper, others praising the 
beauty of his person and the majesty of his mien. " And 
you," said Tigranes, addressing himself to his lady, "what 
do you think of Cyrus's aspect and deportment ? " "I 
do not know," replied the lady, " I did not observe him." 
"Upon what object, then, did you fix your eyes?" 
" Upon him that said he would give a thousand lives to 
ransom my liberty." 

The next day the King of Armenia sent presents to 
Cyrus, and refreshments for his whole army, and brought 
him double the sum of money he was required to furnish. 
But Cyrus took only what had been stipulated, and re- 
stored him the rest. The Armenian troops were ordered 
to be ready in three days' time, and Tigranes desired to 
command them. 

Rollin, 



90 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

XXIII -THE MACEDOJflAJ^ EMPIRE. 

1. After the battle of Platsea, in wliich the army of 
the Persian king Xerxes was defeated and destroyed, the 
Greek states became the dominant power in the civilized 
world, and the Greek cities became centers of influence 
and art Under Pericles, the successor of Themistocles, 
Athens, in richness and beauty of her palaces and tem- 
ples, arrived at a point of excellence which far surpassed 
anything the world had before seen. But jealousies be- 
tween different states led to civil wars that desolated the 
whole land, and in the next one hundred and flfty years 
scarcely any progress was made in adding to the national 
strength. While these bloody wars were going on prin- 
cipally between Sparta and Athens, the tribes of Mace- 
don, a region lying immediately north of Greece, were 
rapidly becoming civilized and consolidated. In 359 b. c. 
Philip became the reigning monarch. 

2. He was very desirous of being considered as a 
Greek, invited distinguished men to his court, and ordered 
public rejoicings in his kingdom when his chariots had 
won the prize at the Olympic games. He was very 
clever, and cared little ahout the justice and honor of the 
means by which he attained his ends, which were, to hold 
in subjection all the rest of Greece, and to conquer Per- 
sia. In the first design he succeeded, for the latter he 
only prepared the way for his son. He had both to form 
his officers and his army. The first he attempted by 
bringing the young nobles to his court, and there instruct- 
ing them ; and in the last he succeeded in a remarkable 
manner, 

3. The chief strength of the army, as he constituted 
it, was in the phalanx, a body of sixteen thousand foot 
soldiers, fully armed in the Greek fashion, with spears 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 91 

twenty-four feet long. When drawn up in order of bat- 
tle, the four front ranks held their spears pointing out- 
ward, and stood at such a space apart, that the foremost 
line had four spear-points between each man and the 
enemy, or on occasion they marched with their shields 
touching, so as to form an almost impenetrable wall. 

4. As soon as Philip's designs against Greece were 
apparent, a strong spirit of resistance showed itself, and 
chiefly at Athens, where the great orator, Demosthenes, 
never ceased to rouse his countrymen to maintain their 
freedom. Demosthenes had trained himseK in eloquence 
under great difficulties ; he naturally either stammered, 
or had an indistinct pronunciation — a defect which he 
cured by speaking with pebbles in his mouth, and he 
used to rehearse his speeches to the roaring sea, in order 
to nerve himself against the clamors of a tumultuous as- 
sembly. He so far succeeded, that he often swayed the 
minds of the Athenians ; his name stands as the flrst of 
orators, and his Philippics, as his discourses against Philip 
are called, are considered as models of rhetoric. 

5. At Cheroneea, in 338, a battle was fought by 
Philip against the allied forces of the Athenians and The- 
bans. At one time the Athenians gained some advan- 
tage, but they used it so ill, that Philip, calling out to his 
troops, " They do not know how to conquer," made a 
sudden charge, and routed them with great slaughter. 
The battle of Cherongea was the end of the independence 
of Greece, which from that time forward became subject 
to Macedon, in spite of its many struggles to shake off 
the yoke, and recover the liberty which had been lost for 
want of a firm, united, settled government. 

6. The King of Macedon next commenced his ar- 
rangements for his other favorite scheme — the invasion 
of Asia ; but in the year 336, in the midst of the feasts in 



92 STOKIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

honor of his daughter's marriage, he was murdered hj a 
young Macedonian noble, who was slain in the first anger 
of the surrounding guards, without having time to dis- 
close the motive of his crime. 

7. Alexander, son of Philip and his Epirot queen 
Oljmpias, was twenty years of age when he came to 
the throne. On the night of his birth the temple of 
Diana, at Ephesus, was burned to the ground by a 
man named Erostratus, in the foolish desire of mak- 
ing himself notorious, and this Alexander liked to con- 
sider as an omen that he should himself kindle a flame 
in Asia. 

8. He traced his descent from his father's side from 
Hercules, and by his mother's from Achilles, and through- 
out his boyhood he seems to have lived in a world of the 
old Greek poetry, sleeping with Homer's works under 
his pillow, and dreaming of deeds in which he should 
rival the fame of the victors of Troy. He was placed 
under the care of Aristotle, the great philosopher of Sta- 
gira, to whom, when Philip had written to announce Al- 
exander's birth, he had said that he knew not whether 
most to rejoice at having a son, or that his son would 
have such a teacher as Aristotle. 

9. From him the young Alexander learned to think 
deeply, to resolve firmly, and devise plans of government ; 
by others he was instructed in all the graceful accom- 
plishments of the Greeks, and under his father he was 
trained to act promptly. At fourteen he tamed the noble 
horse Bucephalus, which no one else dared to mount ; 
two years later he rescued his father in a battle with the 
Scythians, and he commanded the cavalry at Cheronsea, 
but he was so young at the time of his accession, that 
the Greeks thought they had nothing to fear from him. 

10. There were very ungenerous rejoicings at Athens 



94 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

at the murder of Philip. Demosthenes, though he had 
just lost a daughter, crowned himself with a wreath of 
flowers, and came with great tokens of joy to announce it 
to the Athenians so soon after the event, as almost to ex- 
cite a suspicion that he must have been concerned in the 
crime. But they found that their joy was nnf onnded, for 
no sooner did Thebes take up arms, than Alexander 
marched against it, destroyed the walls, killed many of the 
citizens, and blotted it out from the number of Greek 
cities. The other states did not dare to make any further 
opposition, and he was thus at leisure to prepare for the 
invasion of Persia. 

11. Leaving Antipater as governor of Macedon, he 
set out in the spring of 334, at the head of thirty thousand 
infantry and four thousand five hundred cavalry, and bade 
farewell to his native land, which he was never to see 
again. He crossed the Hellespont, and was the first man 
to leap on Asiatic ground ; then, while his forces were 
landing, he went to visit the spot which had so long been 
the object of his dreams — the village which marked the 
site of Troy. He offered a sacrifice at the tomb of 
Achilles, hung up his own shield in the temple, and took 
down one which was said to be a relic of the Greek con- 
querors, intending to have it always borne before him in 
battle. 

12. His march was at first toward the east, along the 
shore of the Hellespont, until at the river Granicus he 
met the Persians drawn up on the other bank of the river, 
under the command of the satrap Memnon. Alexander 
himself, at the head of his cavalry, charged through the 
midst of the rapid stream, won the landing-place, and fol- 
lowed by the phalanx, quickly gained a complete victory. 

13. All the neighboring country fell into his hands, 
and after taking possession of it, he changed his course, 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 95 

marcliiDg along the shores of the ^gean, and taking all 
the towns. It was his first object to cut the Persians off 
from their seaports, and thus deprive them of the use of 
their fleet, which was so superior to his own, that he never 
ventured on one sea-fight. 

14. This march round the western and southern coasts 
of Asia Minor, together with an expedition into the inte- 
rior, occupied a year, and in the early part of the sum- 
mer, he arrived at Tarsus, in Cilicia. Here, on entering 
the city, overwhelmed with heat and fatigue, he bathed 
in the cold waters of the Cydnus, and the chill brought 
on a violent fever, which nearly cost him his life. A 
letter was sent to warn him that his physician, Philip, 
had been bribed by tlie Persian king to poison him. 
While he was reading it the physician himself brought 
him a draught of medicine ; the king put the letter into 
his hand, took the cup and drank it off, even before 
Philip could profess his innocence. In three days' time 
he w^as again able to appear at the head of his troops, and 
not before he w^as needed, for the enemy-s army was near 
at hand, under King Darius Codomanus himself. 

15. The Persians advanced in great state. First came 
a number of persons bearing silver altars, on which burned 
the sacred fire ; then followed the Magi, and three hun- 
dred and sixty-five youths robed in scarlet, in honor of 
the days of the year. ISText came the chariot and horses 
of the Sun, with their attendants, and afterward the army 
itself, the Immortal Band, with gold-handled lances, white 
robes, and jeweled corslets, and a host of others of less 
note, all far more fit for show than for battle. Darius 
himself, arrayed in purple robes and glittering with jew- 
els, was in the midst, in a chariot covered with gold orna- 
ments, and with him came his mother, Sisygambis, his 
principal wife, his daughters, a number of other ladies, 



96 STORIES OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 

and a multitude of slaves. This unwieldy and useless 
host took up their position on the hilly ground above the 
city of Issus, wliere they were so entangled among the 
rocks, that their numbers were of little profit to them, 
and it was an easy victory for the Macedonians, ^o 
sooner did Darius see that the day was against him, than 
he tamed his chariot and fled, leaving his family to fall 
into the hands of the conqueror, while he himseK has- 
tened to Babylon to collect another army. 

16. Alexander treated the mother, wife, and children 
of Darius with great kindness and courtesy, sending an 
ofiicer to assure them of his protection, and going the 
next morning to visit them, accompanied by his friend 
Hephsestion, a young man of his own age. Alexander, 
though of beautiful and noble countenance, and well 
formed for strength and activity, was rather short in stat- 
ure, and as his dress was very simple, Sisygambis mistook 
Hephsestion for the King of Macedon, and threw herself 
on the ground before him ; and she was greatly confused 
and distressed when she discovered her error ; but Alex- 
ander said, as he raised her, '' You were not deceived, for 
he is Alexander's other self." He gave her the name of 
mother, never sat down in her presence except at her re- 
quest, and showed in every point a respect and courtesy 
such as she had probably never before received from the 
Asiatic princes, who always held women in contempt. 

17. Pursuing his intention of first destroying the 
naval power of the Persian empire, Alexander next en- 
tered Phoenicia, and readily received the submission of 
Zidon, but Tyre refused to admit him within the walls. 
ISTew Tyre, which was built after the seventy years' deso- 
lation which followed the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, 
stood upon an island about half a mile from the shore, 
and was inhabited by a numerous and brave people, who 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 97 

thought themselves secure from an enemy who had no 
fleet to bring against them. 

18. Alexander was, however, not to be daunted by 
any difficulty. He at first attempted to build a causeway 
from the shore to the island, and when the Tyrians de- 
stroyed his works he went to Zidon and there obtained a 
fleet, by means of which he at length took the city after 
a seven months' siege. He stained his victory by a cruel 
slaughter, and made slaves of all whose lives were spared, 
excepting a few whom the Zidonians contrived to con- 
ceal in their ships. This was the flnal fall of the great 
merchant city, so often predicted by Isaiah and Ezekiel. 

19. He then marched through the rest of Palestine, 
intending to punish Jerusalem, which had stood loyal to 
Darius, and refused to send him supplies. The Jews, on 
his approach, prayed for guidance and protection, and it 
was revealed to Jaddua, the high-priest, that he should 
open the gates and go forth in his sacred robes to receive 
the Grecian conqueror. It was accordingly done ; and 
Jaddua, in the vestments of Aaron, came forth at the 
head of the choir of priests in white garments as Alexan- 
der and the Greeks mounted the hill toward the city. 
No sooner did the king meet the procession than he bent 
down to the ground in adoration, and walked in the midst of 
the priests to the temple, where a sacritice was offered ; and 
he not only spared the Jews, but showed them much favor. 

20. He told his generals that before he left Macedon 
he had seen in a dream a figure exactly resembling that 
of the high-priest, which had foretold all his conquests. 
And surely there is little reason to doubt that such a reve- 
lation might be made to a conqueror marked out as clear- 
ly by prophecy as Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus, before he 
set out on the work appointed for him. Both his prede- 
cessors in conquest, as soon as they came in contact with 



98 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

the chosen people, were taught that they were the sub- 
jects of prophecy ; and Alexander, in his turn, was shown 
by Jaddua the prediction of Daniel, which spoke of him 
as a he-goat (the actual ensign of Macedon), " Who came 
from the West, and smote the ram, and brake his two 
horns, and cast him down and trampled on him." " And 
the rough goat is the King of Grecia." 

21. He then proceeded southward, besieged and took 
Gaza, after a brave resistance, which he cruelly requited, 
and entered Egypt, subduing it with little difficulty. On 
one of the peninsulas formed by the mouth of the Nile, 
he founded a city, called after his name Alexandria, 
which became the capital of Egypt under its Greek rulers, 
and one of the most famous cities in the world. He 
made an expedition to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, on 
an oasis in the Libyan desert, and consulted the oracle 
there, and then after appointing a Macedonian satrap in 
Egypt, retraced his steps toward the Holy Land, and 
marched toward Babylonia, where Darius was again col- 
lecting his forces to oppose him. 

Charlotte M. Yonge. 



XXir--ALEXJJ^DEB'S COJVQUESTS. 

1. Alexander crossed the Euphrates and Tigris without 
opposition, and the decisive battle did not take place till 
he reached the plain of Arbela, where the Persians were 
drawn up to receive him. The Macedonians wished to 
make a night attack, but Alexander would not permit 
it, saying that he disdained to steal a victory, and the 
combat took place the next day. 

2. The present army of Persians was drawn from the 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 99 

more remote regions of Bactria and Parthia, where the 
men were more warlike, and thej fought better than 
any whom the Macedonians had before encountered ; but 
Darius himself fled early in the day, leaving behind 
him his bow and shield ; his men lost courage, and fol- 
lowed him, and Alexander was left master of the field of 
Arbela. 

3. This battle placed in his power all the western part 
of the Persian empire, and he had ouly to march to the 
great cities of Babylon, Snsa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis, 
to take possession of the huge stores of treasures there 
heaped up by the Persian kings, which he now distrib- 
uted among his followers with royal bounty. The unfor- 
tunate Darius escaped into Bactria, where two satraps, in 
whom he had confided, treacherously seized him and made 
him prisoner, carrying him along with them as they fled 
before Alexander, until at length, being closely pressed 
by the Greeks, they threw their darts at him, and left 
him lying on the ground mortally wounded. 

4. He was still alive when some of the Greeks came 
up, but died before the arrival of Alexander. The con- 
queror wept as he beheld the corpse of the last of a line 
of such great princes ; he threw his own cloak over it, 
and sent it to Babylon, where it was buried with great 
magnificence. 

5. The wife of Darius had died a prisoner, but Sisy- 
gambis still remained with her grandchildren at Babylon. 
Only once does Alexander seem to have hurt her feelings, 
and this was through ignorance of Persian customs. He 
show^ed her some robes of his sister's own weaving and 
embroidery, and offered to have her grand-daughters in- 
structed in the same art, at which she wept, since Persian 
ladies deemed such employments work fit only for slaves 
and captives, and Alexander was obliged to explain how 




Alexander at the Dead Body of Darius. 



EARLY EASTEBN RECORD. 101 

honorably the loom and needle were esteemed by his own 
countrywomen. 

G. Alexander was much attached to his own mother, 
Olympias, and portions of his letters to her have come 
down to our time. She was a proud and violent woman, 
who often interfered with Antipater, governor of Mace- 
don, and caused him to send many complaints to the 
king : " Ah ! " said Alexander, '' Antipater does not know 
that one tear of a mother will blot out ten thousand of 
his letters." 

7. Alexander had indeed an open and affectionate 
heart, but he was fast becoming too much uplifted by his 
successes. On Darius's death, he took the state as well 
as the title of a king of Persia, wore the tiara and robes, 
and claimed from the Macedonians the same servile tokens 
of homage as were paid by the eastern nations, thus caus- 
ing perpetual heart-burnings among them, since they could 
neither endure to see their king exalted so much further 
above them, nor to be placed on the same level with the 
barbarians whom they despised. 

8. Their jealousies troubled Alexander from the time 
he assumed the tiara of Persia. He found it impossible 
to raise the condition of the Persians, and treat them with 
favor, without offending the Macedonians, and his temper 
did not always endure these provocations. The worst 
action of his hfe was the sentencing to death, on a false 
accusation, the w^ise old General Parmenio, and his son ; 
and in a fit of passion at a riotous banquet, he slew, with 
his own hand, his friend Clitus, his nurse's son, who had 
saved his life at the battle of Granicus. It was the deed 
of a moment of drunken violence, and he bitterly lament- 
ed it, shutting himself up for several days without allow- 
ing any one to approach him, and paying all honors to 
the memory of his murdered friend. 



102 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

9. His pride and vain-glory went so far, that lie de- 
clared that the oracle of Jupiter Ammon had announced 
that he was the son of Jupiter, and sent to Greece to de- 
sire to be enrolled among the gods in his life-time. Some 
of the Greeks were shocked at his profanity, others 
laughed at him ; but all the Spartans said was, " If Alex- 
ander will be a god, let him.-' 

10. The four next years were the most laborious of 
Alexander's life. He pursued the murderers of Darius 
into Bactria and Sogdiana, avenged his death, and re- 
duced the numerous hill-forts as far as the frontier of 
Scythia. Fierce insurrections broke out among the wild 
tribes of Sogdiana, which it required all his activity and 
judgment to quell, and more than once provoked him 
into cruelty, though in general, conqueror as he was, 
he was no spoiler, but wherever he went founded cit- 
ies, and tried to teach the Persians the civilized arts of 
Greece. 

11. In 326 he set out for India, as the region was 
called round the river Indus. Here the inhabitants were 
warlike, and Porus, kiug of a portion of the country, 
made a brave resistance, but was at length defeated and 
taken prisoner. On being brought before Alexander he 
said he had nothing to ask, save to be treated as a king. 
" That I shall do for my own sake," said Alexander, and 
accordingly not only set him at liberty, but enlarged his 
territory. 

12. All these Indian nations brought a tribute of ele- 
phants, which the Macedonians now for the first time 
learned to employ in war. Alexander wished to proceed 
into Hindostan, a country hitherto entirely unknown, but 
his soldiers grew so discontented at the prospect of being 
led so much farther from home, into the utmost parts of 
the earth, that he was obliged to give up his attempt, and 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 103 

verj unwillingly turned back from the banks of the Sut- 
lej. 

13. While returning, he besieged a little town belong- 
ing to a tribe called the JVIalli, and believed to be the 
present city of Mooltan. He was the first to scale the 
wall, and after four others had mounted, the ladder broke, 
and he was left standing on the wall, a mark for the darts 
of the enemy. He instantly leaped down within the wall 
into the midst of the Malli, and there setting his back 
against a fig-tree, defended himself until a barbed arrow 
deeply pierced his breast, and, after trying to keep up a 
little longer, he sunk, fainting, on his shield. His four 
companions sprung down after him — two were slain, but 
the others held their shields over him till the rest of the 
army succeeded in breaking into the town and coming to 
the rescue. 

14. His wound was severe and dangerous, but he at 
length recovered, sailed down to the mouth of the Indus, 
and sent a fleet to survey the Persian Gulf, while he him- 
self marched along the shore. The country was bare and 
desert, and his army suffered dreadfully from heat, thirst, 
and hunger, while he readily shared all their privations. 
A little water was once brought him on a parching day, 
as a great prize, but since there was not enough for all, 
he poured it out on the sand, lest his faithful followers 
should feel themselves more thirsty when they saw him 
drink alone. 

15. At last he safely arrived at Caramania, whence 
he retui'ned to the more inhabited and wealthy parts of 
Persia, held his court with great magnificence at Susa, 
and then went to Babylon. Here embassies met him 
from every part of tlie known world, bringing gifts and 
homage, and above all, there arrived from the Greek 
states the much desired promise that he should be hon- 



104 



STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



ored as a god. He was at the highest pitch of worldly 
greatness to which mortal man had yet attained, and his 




Alexander the Great. 



designs were reaching yet further ; but his hour was come, 
and at Babylon, the home of pride, " the great horn " was 
to be broken. 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 105 

16. In the marshes into which the Euphrates had 
spread since its channel was altered by Cyrus, there 
breathed a noxious air, and a few weeks after Alexander's 
arrival, he was attacked by a fever, perhaps increased by 
intemperance. He bore up against it as long as possible, 
continued to offer sacrifices daily, though with increasing 
difficulty, and summoned his officers to arrange plans for 
his intended expedition ; but his strength failed him on 
the ninth day, and though he called them together as 
usual, he could not address them. Perhaps he thought 
in that hour of the prophecy he had seen at Jerusalem, 
that the empire he had toiled to raise should be divided, 
for he is reported to have said that there would be a 
mighty contest at his funeral games. He made no at- 
tempt to name a successor, but he took off his signet-ring, 
placed it on the finger of Perdiccas, one of his generals, 
and a short time after expired, in the thirty-third year of 
his age, and the twelfth of his reign. 

17. There was a voice of wailing throughout the city 
that night. The Babylonians shut up their houses, and 
trembled at the neighborhood of the fierce Greek sol- 
diery, now that their protector w^as dead ; the Macedo- 
nians stood to arms all night, as if in presence of the 
enemy ; and when in the morning the officers assembled 
in the palace council chamber, bitter and irrepressible was 
the burst of lamentation that broke out at the sight of 
the vacant throne, where lay the crown, scepter, and royal 
robes, and where Perdiccas now placed the signet-ring. 
More deeply than all mourned the prisoner, the aged 
Sisygambis, who covered her face with a black veil, sat 
down in a corner of her room, refused all entreaties to 
speak or to eat, and expired five days after Alexander. 

18. E"or did the Persians soon cease to lament the con- 
queror, who had ruled them more beneficently than their 



106 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

owD monarchs had done ; their traditions made Alexan- 
der a prince of their own, and adorned him with every 
virtue vahied in the East. That he had many great faults 
has already been shown, and, of course, by the rules of 
justice, his conquests were but reckless gratiti cations of 
his own ambition ; but he was a high-minded, generous 
man, open of heart, free of hand, and for the most part 
acting up to his knowledge of right ; and if unbridled 
power, talent of the highest order, and glory such as none 
before or since has ever attained, inflamed his passions, 
and elated him with pride, still it is not for us to judge 
severely of one who had such great temptations, and so 
little to guide him aright. 

Charlotte 31. Yonge. 



XXV -JUDAS MACCABMUS, THE HEBREW 
WILLIAM TELL. 

1. The kingdom of Judah escaped destruction at the 
hands of Sennacherib, but its respite was short. Soon 
afterward Babylon, closely related to Assyria, and the 
heir of its dominion, swept into captivity in distant 
Mesopotamia nearly all that were left of Hebrew stock. 
For a time, the nation seemed to have been wiped from 
the face of the earth. The ten tribes of Israel that had 
been first dragged forth never returned to Judea, and 
their ultimate fate, after the destruction of l^ineveh, 
whose splendor they had in their servitude done so much 
to enhance, was that of homeless wanderers. The harp 
of Judah, silent upon the devastated banks of the Jordan, 
was hung upon the Babylonian willows, for how could 
the exiles sing the Lord's song in a strange land ! But 



I 



I 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 107 

the cry went forth at length that Babylon had fallen in 
her turn, just as destruction had before overtaken Nine- 
veh. In the middle of the sixth century b. c, Cyrus the 
Mede made a beginning of restoring the exiles, who 
straightway built anew the Temj)le walls. 

2. In David's time, the population of Palestine must 
have numbered several millions, and it largely increased 
during the succeeding reigns. Multitudes, however, had 
perished by the sword, and other multitudes were re- 
tained in strange lands. Scarcely fifty thousand found 
their way back in the time of Cyrus to the desolate site 
of Jerusalem, but, one hundred years later, the number 
was increased by a re-enforcement under Ezra. From 
this nucleus, with astonishing vitality, a new Israel was 
presently developed. With weapons always at hand to 
repel the freebooters of the desert, they constructed once 
more the walls of Jerusalem. Through all their harsh 
experience their feelings of nationality had not been at 
all abated ; their blood was untouched by foreign admixt- 
ure, though some Gentile ideas had entered into the sub- 
stance of their faith. The conviction that they were the 
chosen people of Grod was as unshaken as in the ancient 
time. With pride as indomitable as ever, intrenched 
within their little corner of Syria, they confronted the 
hostile world. 

3. But a new contact was at hand, far more memo- 
rable even than that with the nations of Mesopotamia — 
a contact whose consequences affect at the present hour 
the condition of the greater part of the human race. In 
the year 332 b. c, the high-priest, Jaddua, at Jerusalem, 
was in an agony, not knowing how he should meet cer- 
tain new invaders of the land, before whom Tyre, and 
Gaza, the old Philistine stronghold, had fallen, and who 
were now marching upon the city of David. But God 



108 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

warned him in a dream that he should take courage, 
adorn the citj, and open the gates ; that the people should 
appear in white garments of peace, but that he and the 
priests should meet the strangers in the robes of their 
office. At length, at the head of a sumptuous train of 
generals and tributary princes, a young man of twenty- 
four, upon a beautiful steed, rode forward from the way 
going down to the sea to the spot which may still be seen, 
called, anciently, Scopus, the prospect, because from that 
point one approaching could behold, for the first time, 
Jerusalem crowned by the Temple rising fair upon the 
heights of Zion and Moriali. 

4. The youth possessed a beauty of a type in those 
regions hitherto little known. As compared with the 
swarthy Syrians in his suite, his skin was white ; his feat- 
ures were stamped with the impress of command, his 
eyes filled with an intellectual hght. With perfect horse- 
manship he guided the motions of his charger. A fine 
grace marked his figure, set off with a cloak, helmet, and 
gleandng arms, as he expressed with animated gestures 
his exultation over the spectacle before him. But now, 
down from the heights came the procession of the priests 
and the people. The multitude proceeded in their robes 
of white ; the priests stood clothed in fine linen ; while 
the high-priest, in attire of purple and scarlet, upon his 
breast the great breastplate of judgment with its jewels, 
upon his head the mitre marked with the plate of gold 
whereon was engraved the name of God, led the train 
wdth venerable dignity. 

5. Now, says the historian, when the Phoenicians and 
Chaldeans that followed Alexander thought that they 
should have liberty to plunder the city, and torment the 
high-priest to death, the very reverse happened ; for the 
young leader, when he saw the multitude in the distance, 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 109 

and the figure of the high-priest before, approached him 
bj himself, saluted him, and adored the name, which was 
graven upon the plate of the mitre. Then a captain, 
named Parmino, asked him how it came to pass that, 
when all others adored him, he should adore the high- 
priest of the Jews. To whom the leader replied : '^ I do 
not adore him, but that God who hath honored him with 
his high-priesthood; for I saw this very person in a 
dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios in Mace- 
donia, who, when I was considering how I might obtain 
the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but 
boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that he would 
conduct my army, and could give me the dominion over 
the Persians." Then, when Alexander had given the 
high-priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him 
and he came into the city, and he offered sacrifice to God 
in the Temple, according to the high-priest's direction, 
and magnificently treated both the high-priest and the 
priests. He granted all the multitude desired ; and when 
he said to them that if any of them would enlist them- 
selves in his army on this condition, that they should con- 
tinue under the laws of their forefathers, he w^as willing 
to take them with him, many were ready to accompany 
him in his wars. 

6. But this Aryan troop that went southward is less 
interesting to us than companies that departed westward, 
for in these westward marching bands went the primeval 
forefathers from whose venerable loins we ourselves have 
proceeded. They passed into Western Asia, and from 
Asia into Europe — each migrating multitude impelled 
by a new swarm sent forth from the parent hive behind. 
At the head of the Adriatic Sea an Aryan troop had 
divided, sending down into the eastern peninsula the an- 
cestors of the Greeks, and into the western peninsula 



110 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

the train destined to establish, upon the seven hills the 
power of Rome. Already the Aryan pioneers, the Celts, 
on the outmost rocks of the western coast of Europe, 
were fretting against the barrier of storm and sea, across 
which they were not to find their way for many ages. 
Already Phoenician merchants, trading for amber in the 
far-oft" Baltic, had become aware of the wild Aryan tribes 
pressing to the northwest — the Teutons and Goths. Al- 
ready, perhaps, upon the outlying spur of the Ural range, 
still other Aryans had fixed their hold, the progenitors of 
the Sclav. The aboriginal savage of Europe was already 
nearly extinct. His lance of flint had fallen harmless 
from the Aryan buckler ; his rude altars had become dis- 
placed by the shrines of the new gods. In the Mediter- 
ranean Sea each sunny isle and pleasant promontory had 
long been in Aryan hands, and now in the wintry forests 
to the northward the resistless multitudes had more re- 
cently fixed their seats. 

Y. In the Macedonians, the Aryans, having established 
their dominion in Europe, march back upon the track 
which their forefathers long before had followed west- 
ward ; and now it is that the Hebrews become involved 
with the race that from that day to this has been the mas- 
ter-race of the world. It was a contact taking place under 
circumstances, it would seem, the most auspicious — the 
venerable old man and the beautiful Greek youth clasping 
hands, the ruthless followers of the conqueror bafiied in 
their hopes of booty, the multitudes of Jerusalem, in 
their robes of peace, filling the air with acclamations, as 
Alexander rode from the place of prospect, upon the 
heights of Zion, into the solemn precincts of the Temple. 

8. The successors of Alexander the Great made the 
Jews a link between the Hellenic populations that had 
become widely scattered throughout the East by the 



EARLY EASTERN- RECORD. HI 

Macedonian conquests, and the great barbarian races 
among whom the Greeks had placed themselves. The dis- 
persion of the Jews, which had already taken place to such 
an extent through the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, 
went forward now more vigorously. Throughout West- 
ern Asia they were found everywhere, but it was in 
Egypt that they attained the highest prosperity and hon- 
or. The one city, Alexandria alone, is said to have con- 
tained at length a million Jews, whom the Greek kings 
of Egypt, the Ptolemies, preferred in every way to the 
native population. Elsewhere, too, they were favored, 
and hence they were everywhere hated ; and the hatred 
assumed a deeper bitterness from the fact that the Jew 
always remained a Jew, marked in garb, in feature, in 
religious faith, always scornfully asserting the claim that 
he was the chosen of the Lord. Palestine became incor- 
porated with the emi^ire of the Seleucidse, the Macedo- 
nian princes to whom had fallen Western Asia. Oppres- 
sion at last succeeded the earlier favor, the defenses of 
Jerusalem were demolished, and the Temple defiled wdth 
pagan ceremonies ; and now it is that we reach some of 
the finest figures in Hebrew history, the great high- 
priests, the Maccabees. 

9. There dwelt at the town of Modin a priest, Matta- 
thias, the descendant of Asmongeus, to whom had been 
born five sons — John, Simon, Judas Maccabreus, or the 
Hammer, Eleazar, and Jonathan. Mattathias lamented 
the ravaging of the land and the plunder of the Temple 
by Antiochus Epiphanes, and when, in the year 167 b. c, 
the Macedonian king sent to Modin to have sacrifices 
offered, the Asmonsean returned a spirited reply. " Thou 
art a ruler," said the king's officers, " and an honorable 
and great man in this city, and strengthened wdth sons 
and brethren. Now, therefore, come thou first : so shalt 



112 STORIES OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 

thou and thy house be in number of the king's friends, 
and thou and thy children shall be honored with silver 
and gold aad many rewards." But Mattathias replied 
with a loud voice : " Though all the nations that are under 
the king's dominions obey him, and fall away every one 
from the religion of their fathers, yet will I and my sons 
and my brethren, walk in the covenant of our fathers. 
God forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordi- 
nances ! We will not hearken to the king's words to go 
from our religion, either on the right hand or the left." 

10, An heroic struggle for freedom at once began, 
which opened for the Jews full of sadness. An apostate 
Jew, approaching to oifer sacritice in compliance with the 
command of Antiochus, was at once slain by Mattathias, 
who struck down also Apelles, the king's general, with 
some of his soldiers. As he fled with his sons into the 
desert, leaving his substance behind him, many of the 
faithful Israelites followed, pursued by the Macedonians 
seeking revenge. The oppressors knew^ well how to choose 
their time. Attacking on the Sabbath-day, when, accord- 
ing to old tradition, it was a transgression even to defend 
one's life, a thousand with their wives and children were 
burned and smothered in the caves in which they had 
taken refuge. But Mattathias, rallying those that re- 
mained, taught them to flght on the Sabbath, and at all 
times. The heathen altars were overthrown, the breakers 
of the law were slain, the uncircumcised boys were every- 
where circumcised. But the fullness of time approached 
for Mattathias ; after a year his day of death had come, 
and these were his parting words to his sons : " I know 
that your brother Simon is a man of counsel ; give ear 
unto him always ; he shall be a father unto you. As for 
Judas Maccabseus, he hath been mighty and strong even 
from his youth up ; let him be your captain and fight 



EARLY EASTERN RECORD. 113 

the battles of the people. Admit among you the right- 
eous." 

11. E'o sooner had the father departed, than it ap- 
peared that the captain whom he had designated was a 
man as mighty as the great champions of old, Joshua and 
Grideon and Samson. He forthwith smote with defeat 
ApoUonius, the general in the Samaritan country, and 
when he had slain the Greek he took his sword for his 
own. Seron, general of the army in Coele-Syria, came 
against him with a host of Macedonians strengthened by 
apostate Jews. The men of Judas Maceabseus were few 
in number, without food, and faint-hearted, but he in- 
spired them with his own zeal, and overthrew the new 
foes at Bethoron. King Antiochus, being now called 
eastward to Persia, committed military matters in Pales- 
tine to the viceroy, Lysias, with orders to take an army 
with elephants and conquer Judea, enslave its people, 
destroy Jerusalem, and abolish the nation. At once the 
new invaders were upon the land ; of foot-soldiers there 
were forty thousand, of horsemen seven thousand, and as 
they advanced many Syrians and renegade Jews joined 
them. Merchants marched with the army, with money 
to buy the captives as slaves, and chains with which to 
bind those whom they purchased. But Judas Maccabaeus 
was no whit dismayed. Causing his soldiers to array 
themselves in sackcloth, he made them pray to Jehovah. 
He dismissed those lately married, and those who had 
newly come into great possessions, as likely to be faint- 
hearted. After addressing those that remained, he set 
them in the ancient order of battle, and waited the oppor- 
tunity to strike. 

12. The hostile general, fancying he saw an opportu- 
nity to surprise the little band of Hebrews, sent a por- 
tion of his host against them, by secret ways at night. 



114 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

But the spies of Jiidas were out. Leaving the fires burn- 
ing brightly in his camp, to lure forward those who were 
commissioned to attack him, he rushed forth under the 
shadows against the main body, weakened by the absence 
of the detachment. He forced their position, though 
strongly defended, overcame the army ; then turned back 
to scatter utterly the other party who were seeking him 
in the abandoned camp. He took great booty of gold 
and silver, and of raiment purple and blue. He marched 
home in great joy to the villages of Judea, singing hymns 
to God, as was done in the days of Miriam, long before, 
because they had triumphed gloriously. 

13. The next year Lysias advanced from Antioch, the 
Syrian capital, with a force of sixty-five thousand. Judas 
Maccabseus, with ten thousand, overthrew his vanguard, 
upon which the viceroy, terrified at the desperate fighting, 
retired to assemble a still greater army. For a time there 
was a respite from war, during which Judas counseled 
the people to purify the Temple. The Israelites, over- 
joyed at the revival of their ancient customs, the restora- 
tion of the old worship in all its purity, and the relief from 
foreign oppressors, celebrated for eight days a magnifi- 
cent festival. The lamps in the Temple porches were re- 
kindled to the sound of instruments and the chant of the 
Levites. But one vial of oil could be found, when, lo, a 
miracle ! the one vial sufiiced for the supply of the seven- 
branched golden candlestick for a week. This ancient 
Maccabgean festival faithful Jews still celebrate under the 
name of the Hanoukhah, the Feast of Lights. 

14. Judas subdues also the Idumeans of the south- 
ward, and the Ammonites. His brethren, too, have be- 
come mighty men of valor. Jonathan crosses the Jordan 
with him and campaigns against the tribes to the east- 
ward. Eleazar is a valiant soldier, and Simon carries 



EARLY EASTEEN EECORD, 115 

succor to the Jews in Galilee. But at length the Mace- 
donian is again at hand, more terrible than before. The 
foot are a hundred thousand, the horse twenty thousand ; 
and as ralljing-points, thirty-two elephants tower among 
the ranks. About each one of the huge beasts is collected 
a troop of a thousand foot and five hundi-ed horse; 
high turrets upon their backs are occupied by archers ; 
their great Hanks and limbs are cased in plates of steel. 
The host show their golden and brazen shields, making 
in the sun a glorious splendor, and shout in exultation so 
that the mountains echo. In the battle that follows For- 
tune does not altogether favor the Jews. In particular, 
the champion Eleazar lays down his Hfe. He had at- 
tacked the largest elephant, a creature covered with plated 
armor, and carrying upon his back a whole troop of com- 
batants, among whom it was believed that the king him- 
seK fought. Eleazar had slain those in the neighborhood, 
then, creeping beneath the belly of the elephant, had 
pierced him. As the brute fell, Eleazar was crashed in 
the fall. Judas was forced to retire within the defenses 
of Jerusalem, where still further disaster seemed likely to 
overcome him. Dissensions among themselves, however, 
weakened the Macedonians. Peace was offered the Jews, 
and permission to live according to the law of their fa- 
thers — proposals which were gladly accepted, although the 
invaders razed the defenses of the Temple. 

15. The peace was not enduring. Xew Macedonian 
invasions followed ; new Hebrew successes, the Maccabees 
and their partisans making up, by their fierce zeal, their 
military skill, and dauntless valor, for their want of num- 
bers. But a sad day came at last. Judas, twenty times 
outnumbered, confronts the leader Bacchides in Galilee. 
The Greek sets horsemen on both wings, his light troops 
and archers before the heavier phalanx, and takes his own 



116 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

station on the right. The Jewish hero is valiant as ever ; 
the right wing of the enemy tarns to flee. The left and 
center, however, encompass him, and he falls, fighting 
gloriously, having earned a name of the most skillful and 
valorous of the world's great vindicators of freedom. 
James K. Ilosmer. " The Story of the Jeics^ 

Putnam's " Stories of the Nations " Series. ^\ 







EOMAJN' EEOORD. 



XXVI.-TABQUIJf THE WICKED. 

1. Foe his tyranny King Tarquin was banished from 
Rome about 500 b. c, and after his expulsion he sent 
messengers to Rome to ask that his property should be 
given np to him, and the senate decreed that his prayer 
should be granted. But the king's ambassadors, while 
they were in Rome, stirred up the minds of the young 
men and others who had been favored by Tarquin, so 
that a plot was made to bring him back. Among those 
who plotted were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of the 
consul Brutus ; and they gave letters to the messengers 
of the king. But it chanced that a certain slave hid him- 
self in the place where they met, and overheard them 
plotting ; and he came and told the thing to the consuls, 
who seized the messengers of the king with the letters 
upon their persons, authenticated by the seals of the 
young men. The culprits were immediately arrested ; 



118 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

but the ambassadors were let go, because their persons 
were regarded as sacred. And the goods of King Tar- 
quin were given up for plunder to the people. 

2. Then the traitors were brought up before the con- 
suls, and the sight was such as to move all beholders to 
pity ; for among them were the sons of Lucius Junius 
Brutus himself, the hrst consul, the liberator of the Ro- 
man people. And now all men saw how Brutus loved 
his country ; for he bade the lictors put all the traitors to 
death, and his own sons first ; and men could mark in his 
face the struggle between his duty as a chief magistrate 
of Rome and his feelings as a father. And while they 
praised and admired him they pitied him yet more. This 
was the first attempt to restore Tarquin the Proud. 

3. When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, 
he prevailed on the people of Tarquin ii and Yeii to make 
war with him against the Romans. But the consuls came 
out against them ; Valerius commanding the main army, 
and Brutus the cavalry. And it chanced that Aruns, the 
king's son, led the cavalry of the enemy. When he saw 
Brutus, he spurred his horse against him, and Brutus did 
not decline the combat. They rode straight at each other 
with leveled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that 
they pierced each other through from breast to back, and 
both fell dead. 

4. Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was 
neither won nor lost. But in the night a voice was heard 
by the Etruscans, saying that the Romans were the con- 
querers. So the enemy fled by night ; and when the Ro- 
mans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose 
them. Then they took up the body of Brutus, and de- 
parted home, and buried him in public with great pomp. 

5. And thus the second attempt to restore King Tar- 
quin was frustrated. After the death of Brutus, Yalerius, 



ROMAN RECORD. 119 

tlie remaining consul, ruled the people for awhile by him- 
self, and began to build himself a house upon the ridge 
called Yelia, which looks down upon the forum. So the 
people thought that he was going to make himself king ; 
but when he heard this, he called an assembly of the 
people, and appeared before them with his fasces low- 
ered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom re- 
mained ever after, that no consular lictors wore axes 
within the city, and no consul had power of life and 
death except when he was in command of his legions 
abroad. And he pulled down the beginning of his house 
upon the Yelia, and built it below that hill. Also, he 
passed laws that every Roman citizen might apjDcal to the 
people against the judgment of the chief magistrates. 
Wherefore he was greatly honored among the people, and 
was called Poplicola, or Friend of the People. 

6. After this Valerius called together the great as- 
sembly of the centuries, and they chose Spurius Lucretius, 
father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus. But he was an 
old man, and not many days afterward he died, and 
Marcus Horatius was chosen in his stead. 

7. The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin 
began had never yet been consecrated. Then Valerius 
and Horatius drew^ lots which should be the consecrator, 
and the lot fell on Horatius. But the friends of Vale- 
rius murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius 
from having the honor ; so, when he was now saying the 
prayer of consecration, with his hand upon the door-post 
of the temple, there came a messenger who told him that 
his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son 
could not rightly consecrate the temple. But Horatius 
kept his hand upon the door-post, and told them to see to 
the burial of his son, and finished the rite of consecration. 
Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son. 



120 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

8. In the next year Yalerins was again made consul, 
with Titus Lucretius ; and Tarquin, despairing now of 
aid from his friends at Yeii and Tarquinii, went to Lars 
Porsena of Chisium, a city on the river Clanis, which falls 
into the Tiber. Porsena was, at this time, acknowledged 
as chief of the twelve Etruscan cities ; and he assembled 
a powerful army and came to Pome. He came so quickly 
that he reached the Tiber, and was near the Sublician 
Bridge before there was time to destroy it : and if he had 
crossed it the city would have been lost. 

9. Then, a noble Poman, called Horatius Codes, of 
the Lucerian tribe, with two friends — Spurius Lartius, a 
Pamnian, and Titus Herminius, a Titian — posted them- 
selves at the far end of the bridge, and defended the pass- 
age against all the Etruscan host, while the Pomans were 
cutting it off behind them. When it was all but de- 
stroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and 
Horatius was left alone to bear the whole attack of the 
enemy. He kept his ground, standing unmoved amid 
the darts which were showered upon his shield, till the 
last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river. 
Then he prayed, saying, " Father Tiber, receive me, and 
bear me up I pray thee." He then plunged in, and 
reached the other side safely ; and the Pomans honored 
him greatly : they put up his statue in the Comitium, and 
gave him as much land as he could plow round in a day, 
and every man at Pome subscribed the cost of one day's 

food to reward him. 

Liddell. 

10. This story is told in very spirited verse by Ma- 
eaulay, in his poem of Horatius : 



nOMAN RECORD. 121 

HORATIUS. 

1. Fast by the royal standard, 

Overlooking all the war, 
Lars Porsena of Clusium 

Sate in his ivory car. 
By the right wheel rode Mamilius, 

Prince of the Latian name ; 
And by the left false Sextus, 

That wrought the deed of shame. 

2. But when the face of Sextus 

Was seen among the foes, 
A yell that rent the firmament 

From all the town arose. 
On the house-tops was no woman 

But spate toward hira and hissed ; 
No child but screamed out curses. 

And shook its little fist. 

3. But the consul's brow was sad. 

And the consul's speech was low ; 
And darkly looked he at the wall, 

And darkly at the foe. 
" Their van will be upon us 

Before the bridge goes down ; 
And if they once may win the bridge, 

What hope to save the town ? " 

4. Then out spoke brave Horatius, 

The captain of the gate : 
" To every man upon this earth 

Death cometh soon or late. 
And how can man die better 

Than facing fearful odds 
For the ashes of his fathers, 

And the temples of his gods ! 



122 



STOmES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 




Horalius. 



ROMAN RECORD. 128 

5. " Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul 

With all the speed ye may ; 
I, witli two more to help me, 

Will hold the foe in play. 
In yon straight path a thousand 

May well be stopped by three. 
Now, who will stand on either hand, 

And keep the bridge with me ? " 

6. Then out spoke Spurius Lartius, 

A Ramnian proud was he : 
" Lo, I will stand on thy right hand, 

And keep the bridge with thee." 
And out spoke strong Herminius, 

Of Titian blood was he : 
" I will abide on thy left side. 

And keep the bridge with thee." 

7. The three stood calm and silent. 

And looked upon the foes. 
And a great shout of laughter 

From all the vanguard rose : 
And forth three chiefs came spurring 

Before that mighty mass ; 
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew 
And lifted high their shields, and flew 

To win the narrow pass. 

8. Annus from green Tifernum, 

Lord of the Hill of Yines ; 
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 

Sicken in Ilva's mines ; 
And Picus, long to Clusium 

Vassal in peace and war. 



124 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 

Who led to fight his Umbrian powers 
From that gray crag where, girt with towers, 
The fortress of J^equiniim lowers 
O'er the pale waves of ]^ar. 

9. Stout Lartins hurled down Annus 

Into the stream beneath ; 
Herminius struck at Seius, 

And clove him to the teeth ; 
At Picus brave Horatius 

Darted one fiery thrust. 
And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms 

Clashed in the bloody dust. 

10. But meanwhile axe and lever 

Have manfully been plied. 
And now the bridge hangs tottering 

Above the boiling tide. 
" Come back, come back, Horatius," 

Loud cried the Fathers all. 
" Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 

Back, ere the ruin fall ! " 

11. Back darted Spurius Lartius ; 

Herminius darted back : 
And as they passed, beneath their feet 

They felt the timbers crack. 
But when they turned their faces, 

And on the further shore 
Saw brave Horatius stand alone. 

They would have crossed once more. 

12. But with a crash like thunder 

Fell every loosened beam, 
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck 
Lay right athwart the stream ; 



ROMAN RECORD. 125 

And a long shout of triumph 

Rose from the walls of Rome, 
As to the highest turret tops 

Was splashed the yellow foam. 

13. Alone stood brave Horatius, 

But constant still in mind ; 
Thrice thirty thousand foes before, 

And the broad flood behind. 
'^ Down with him ! " cried false Sextus, 

With a smile on his pale face. 
" E^ow yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, 

" I^ow yield thee to our grace." 

14. Round turned he, as not deigning 

Those craven ranks to see ; 
Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, 

To Sextus naught spake he ; 
But he saw on Palatinus 

The white porch of his home. 
And he spake to the noble river 

That rolls by the towers of Rome. 

15. " Oh, Tiber ! Father Tiber ! 

To whom the Romans pray, 
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms. 

Take thou in charge this day ! " 
So he spoke, and speaking sheathed 

The good sword by his side, 
And with his harness on his back 

Plunged headlong in the tide. 

16. But fiercely ran the current. 

Swollen high by months of rain : 
And fast his blood was flowing ; 
And he was sore in pain, 



126 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 



And heavy with his armor, 

And spent with changing blows : 
And oft they thought him sinking, 

But still again he rose. 

17. And now he feels the bottom ; 

E^ow on dry earth he stands ; 
Now round him throng the fathers. 

To press his gory hands ; 
And now with shouts and clapping, I 

And noise of weeping loud. 
He enters through the Eiver-gate, ^ 

Borne by the joyous crowd. 

18. And still his name sounds stirring 

LTnto the men of Rome, 
As the trumpet-blast that cries to them 

To charge the Yolscian home ; 
And wives still pray to Juno 

For boys with hearts as bold 
As his who kept the bridge so well 

In the brave days of old. 

19. And in the nights of winter, ^ 

Wlien the cold north winds blow, ^ 

And the long howling of the wolves 

Is heard amidst the snow ; 
When round the lonely cottage 

Roars loud the tempest's din, 
And the good logs of Algidus 

Roar louder yet within. 

20. When the oldest cask is opened. 

And the largest lamp is lit. 
When the chestnuts glow in the embers, 
And the kid turns on the spit ; 



ROMAN RECORD. 

"When young and old in circle 
Around the firebrands close ; 

When the girls are weaving baskets, 
And the lads are shaping bows. 

21. When the goodman mends his armor, 

And trims his helmet's plume ; 
When the goodwife's shuttle merrily 

Goes flashing through the loom ; 
With weeping and with laughter 

Still is the story told, 
How well Horatius kept the bridge 

In the brave days of old. 



127 



Macaulay. 




XXVIL-THE R0MA:K REPUBLIC. 

1. The establishment of the republic marked an era 
in the history of Eome. The people had decreed, that 
for them there never should be a king, and the law was 
kept to the letter ; though, if they meant that supreme 
authority should never be held among them by one man, 
it was violated many times. The story of Rome is unique 
in the history of the world, for it is not the record of the 
life of one great country, but of a city that grew to be 



128 STORIES OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 

strong, and successfully established its authority over many 
countries. 

2. The most ancient and the most remote from the 
sea of the cities of Latium, Rome soon became the most 
influential, and began to combine in itself the traits of 
the peoples near it ; but owing to the singular strength 
and rare impressiveness of the national character, these 
were assimilated, and the inhabitant of the capital re- 
mained distinctively a Roman in spite of his intimate as- 
sociation with men of difl:erent origin and training. 

3. The citizen of Rome was practical, patriotic, and 
faithful to obligation ; he loved to be governed by inflex- 
ible law ; and it was a fundamental principle with him 
that the individual should be subordinate to the state. 
His kings were either organizers, like Numa and Ancus- 
Marcius, or warriors like Romulus and Tullus HostiHus ; 
they either made laws, like Servius, or they enforced 
them with the despotism of Tarquinius Superbus. It is 
diflScult for us to conceive of such majestic power emanat- 
ing from a territory so insignificant. 

4. We hardly realize that Latium did not comprise a 
territory quite fifty miles by one hundred in extent, and 
that it was but a hundred miles from the Mediterranean 
to the Adriatic. It w^as but a short walk from Rome to 
the territory of the Etruscans, and when Tarquin found 
an asylum at Caere, he did not separate himself by twenty 
miles from the scene of his tyranny. Ostia was scarcely 
more distant, and one might have ridden before the first 
meal of the day to Lavinium, or Alba, or Yeii, or to Ar- 
dea, the ancient city of the Rutuli. It is important to 
keep these facts in mind as we read the story of the re- 
markable city. 

5. All towns were built on hills in these early days, 
for safety in case of war, as well as because the valleys 



ROMAN RECORD. 



129 



were insalubrious, but this was not a peculiarity of the 
Romans, for in New England in the late ages of our own 
ancestors, they were obliged to follow the same custom. 
On the tops and slopes of seven hills, as tliey liked to re- 
mind themselves, the Romans built their city. They were 
not impressive elevations, though their sides were sharp 
and rocky, for the loftiest rose less than three hundred 




Ancient Roman Monument. 

feet above the sea-level. Their summits were crowned 
with groves of beech trees and oaks, and in the lower 
lands grew osiers and other smaller varieties. 

6. The earlier occupations of the Roman people were 
war and agriculture, or the pasturage of flocks and herds. 
They raised grapes and made whines ; they cultivated the 
oil-olive, and knew the use of its fruit. They found cop- 
per in their soil, and made a pound of it their unit of 
value, but it was so cheap that ten thousand pounds of it 
were required to buy a war-horse, though cattle and sheep 



130 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

were much lower. They yoked their oxen and called the 
path they occupied a jugermn {jugum — a cross-beam or 
a yoke), and this in time came to be their familiar stand- 
ard of square measure, containing about two-thirds of an 
acre. Two of these were assigned to a citizen, and seven 
were the narrow limit to which only one's landed posses- 
sions were for a long time allowed to extend. In time 
commerce was added to the pursuits of the men, and with 
it came fortunes and improved dwellings, and public 
buildings. Laziness and luxury were frowned upon by 
the early Romans. Mistress and maid worked together 
in the affairs of the household, like Lucretia and other 
noble women of whom history tells, and the man did not 
hesitate to hold the plow, as the example of Cincinnatus 
will show us. Time was precious, and thrift and economy 
were necessary to success. The father was the autocrat in 
the household, and exercised his power with stern rigidity. 

7. Art was backward, and came from abroad ; of litera- 
ture there was none, long after Greece had passed its pe- 
riod of heroic poetry. The dwellings of the citizens were 
low and insignificant, though, as time passed on, they 
became more massive and important. The vast public 
structures of the later kings were comparable to the task- 
work of the builders of the Egyptian pyramids, and they 
still strike us with astonishment, and surprise. 

8. The religion of these strong conquerors was nar- 
row, severe, and dreary. The early fathers worshiped 
native deities only. They recognized gods everywhere — 
in the home, in the grove, and on the mountain. They 
erected their altars on the hills ; they had their lares and 
penates to watch over their hearth-stones, and their vestal 
virgins kept everlasting vigil near the never-dying fires in 
the temples. With the art of Grreece that made itself felt 
through Etruria, came also the influence of the Grecian 



ROMAN RECORD. 131 

mythology, and Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva found a shrine 
on the top of the CapitoHne, where the first statue of a 
deity was erected. The mysterious sibylhne books are 
also a mark of the Grecian influence, coming from Cumse, 
a colony of Magna Grsecia. 

9. During the period we have considered, the city 
passed through five distinct stages of political organiza- 
tion. The government at first was an elective monarchy, 
the electors being a patriarchal aristocracy. After the 
invasion of the Sabines there was a union with that people, 
the sovereignty being held by rulers chosen from each, but 
it was not long before Kome became the head of a federal 
state. The Tarquins established a monarchy, which rap- 
idly degenerated into an offensive tyranny, which aroused 
rebellion and at last led to the republic. 

10. During all these changes, the original aristocrats 
and their descendants held their position as the Populus 
Romanus, the Roman people, insisting that every one 
else must belong to an inferior order, and, as no body of 
men is willing to be condemned to a hopelessly subordi- 
nate position in a state, there was a perpetual antagonism 
between the patricians and the plebeians, between the 
aristocracy and the commonalty. This led to a tempo- 
rary change under Servius Tullius, when property took 
the place of pedigree in establishing a man's rank and in- 
fluence ; but owing to the peculiar method of voting 
adopted, the power of the commons was not greatly in- 
creased. However, they had made their influence felt, and 
were encouraged. 

11. The overturning of the scheme by Tarquin favored a 
union of the two orders for the punishment of that tyrant, 
and they combined ; but it was only for a time. When 
the danger had been removed, the tie was found broken 
and the antagonism rather increased, so that the subse- 



132 



8T0RIE8 OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 



quent history for tive generations, though exceedingly 
interesting, is largely a record of the struggles of the 
commons for relief from the burdens laid upon them by 
the aristocrats. 

12. The father passed down to his son the story of 
the oppression of the patricians, and the son told the same 




Roman Private Life, 

sad narrative to his offspring. The mother mourned 
with her daughter over the sufferings brought upon them 
by the rich, for whom their poor father and brothers were 



ROMAN' RECORD. 133 

obliged to fight the battles, while they were not allowed 
to share the spoil, nor to divide the lands gained by their 
own prowess. The struggle was not so much between 
patrician and plebeian as between the rich and the poor. 
It was intimately connected with the uses of money in 
those times. What could the rich Roman do with his 
accumulations? He might buy land or slaves, or he 
migiit become a lender ; to a certain extent he could use 
his surplus in commerce ; but of these its most remunera- 
tive employment was found in usury. As there were no 
laws regulating the rates of interest, they became exorbi- 
tant, and as it was customary to compound it, debts rap- 
idly grew beyond the possibility of payment. As the 
rich made the laws they naturally exerted their ingenuity 
to frame them in such a way as to enable the lender to 
collect his dues with promptness and with little regard 
for the feelings or interests of the debtor. 

13. It is difiicult, if not impossible, for us to form a 
proper conception of tlie magnitude of the wrongs in- 
volved in the system of money-lending at Rome during 
the period of the republic. The small farmers were ever 
needy, and came to their wealthy neighbors for accommo- 
dation loans. If these were not paid when due, the 
debtor was liable to be locked up in prison, to be sold 
into slavery, with his children, wife, and grandchildren ; 
and the heartless law reads, that in case the estate should 
prove insufficient to satisfy all claims, tlie creditors were 
actually authorized to cut the body to pieces, that each 
Shylock might take the pound of flesh that he claimed. 

14. At last the severity of the lenders overreached it- 
self. It was in the year 495 b. c, that a poor but brave debt- 
or, one who had been at the very front in the wars, broke 
out of his prison, and while the wind flaunted his rags in 
the face of the populace, clanked his chains and told the 



134 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

story of his calamities so effectually in words of natural 
eloquence, that the commons were aroused to madness, 
and resolved at last to make a vigorous effort, and seek 
redress for their wrongs in a way that could not be resisted. 

15. The form of this man stands out forever on the 
pages of Roman history, as he entered the forum with all 
the badges of his misery upon him. His pale and eiiiaci- 
ated body was but partially covered by his wretched tat- 
ters ; his long hair played about his shoulders, and his 
glaring eyes and the grizzled beard hanging down before 
him added to his savage wildness. As he passed along 
he uncovered the scars of near two score battles that re- 
mained upon his breast, and explained to inquirers that 
while he had been serving in the Sabine war, his house 
had been pillaged and burned by the enemy ; that when 
he had returned to enjoy the sweets of the peace he had 
helped to win, he had found that his cattle had been 
driven off, and a tax imposed. 

16. To meet the debts that thronged upon him and 
the interest by which they were aggravated, he had 
stripped himself of his ancestral farms. Finally, pesti- 
lence had overtaken him, and as he was not able to work, 
his creditor had placed him in a house of detention, the 
savage treatment in which was shown by the fresh stripes 
upon his bleeding back. 

17. At the moment a war was imminent, and the 
forum — the entire city, in fact — already excited, was 
filled with the uproar of the angry plebeians. Many con- 
fined for debt broke from their prison-houses and ran 
from all quarters into the crowds to claim protection. 
The majesty of the consuls was insufficient to preserve 
order, and while the discord was rapidly increasing horse- 
men rushed into the gates announcing that an enemy was 
actually upon them, marching to besiege the city. The 



ROMAN RECORD. 135 

plebeians saw that their opportunity had arrived, and 
when proud Appius Claudius called upon them to enroll 
their names for the war, they refused the summons, say- 
ing that the patricians might fight their own battles ; that 
for themselves it was better to perish together at home 
rather than to go to the field and die separated. 

18. Threatened with war beyond the gates, and with 
riot at home, the patricians were forced to promise to re- 
dress the civil grievances. It was ordered that no one 
could seize or sell the goods of a soldier while he was in 
camp, or arrest his children, and that no one should de- 
tain a citizen in prison or in chains, so as to hinder him 
from enlisting in the army. When this was known, the 
released prisoners volunteered in numbers, and entered 
upon the war with enthusiasm. The legions were victori- 
ous, and when peace was declared, the plebeians anxiously 
looked for the ratification of the promises made to them. 

19. Their expectations were disappointed. They had, 
however, seen their power, and were determined to cat 
upon their new knowledge. Without undue haste they 
protected their homes on the Aventine, and retreated the 
next year to a mountain across the Anio, about three 
miles from the city, to a spot which afterward held a 
place in the memories of the Romans similar to that 
which the green meadow on the Thames called Runny- 
mede has held in British history since the June day when 
King John met his commons there, and gave them the 
great charter of their liberties. 

20. The plebeians said calmly that they would no 
longer be imposed upon ; that not one of them would 
thereafter enhst for a war until the public faith was made 
good. They reiterated the declaration that the lords 
might fight their own battles, so that the perils of con- 
flict should lie where its advantages were. When the 



136 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

situation of affairs was thoroughly understood, Rome was 
on fire with anxiety, and the enforced suspense filled the 
citizens with fear lest an external enemy should take the 
opportunity for a successful onset upon the city. 

21. Meanwhile the poor secessionists fortified their 
camp, but carefully refrained from actual war. The peo- 
ple left in the city feared the senators, and the senators 
in turn dreaded the citizens lest they should do them vio- 
lence. It was a time of panic and suspense. After con- 
sultation, good counsels prevailed in the senate, and it 
was resolved to send an embassy to the despised and down- 
trodden plebeians, who now seemed to hold the balance of 
power, and to treat for peace, for there could be no secur- 
ity until the secessionists had returned to their homes. 

22. The sjDokesman on the occasion was Menenius 
Agrippa Lanatus who was popular with the people and 
had a reputation for eloquence. The address of this 
good man had its desired effect, and the people were at 
last willing to listen to a proposition for their return. It 
was settled that there should be a general release of all 
those who had been handed over to their creditors, and 
a cancelling of debts, and that two of the plebeians should 
be selected as their protectors, with power to veto objec- 
tionable laws, their persons being as inviolable at all times 
as were those of the sacred messengers of the gods. 
These demands, showing that the plebeians did not seek 
political power, were agreed to, the Valerian laws were 
reaffirmed, and a solemn treaty was concluded, each party 
swearing for itself and its posterity, with all the formal- 
ity of representatives of foreign nations. 

23. The two leaders of the commons, Caius Licinius 
and Lucius Albinus, were elected the first tribunes of 
the people, as the new officers were called, with two 
sediles to aid them. They were not to leave the city 



ROMAN RECORD. 137 

during their term of office, their doors being open 
night and day, that all who needed their protection might 
have acccess to them. The hill upon which this treaty 
had been concluded was ever after known as the Sacred 
Mount; its top was enclosed and consecrated, an altar 
being built upon it, on which sacrifices were offered to 
Jupiter, the god of terror and deliverance, who had al- 
lowed the commons to return home in safety, though 
they had gone out in trepidation. Henceforth the com- 
mons were to be protected ; they were better fitted to 
share the honors as well as the benefits of their country, 
and the threatened dissolution of the nation was averted. 
Arthur Gilman^ M. A. " The Story of Rome.'''' 

Putnam's " Stories of the Nations Series.'''' 



XXYIII.-CIJ^CIJ^JfATUS. 

1. In tlie course of the early Roman wars, Minucius, 
one of the consuls suffered himself to be cut off from 
Eome, in a narrow valley of Mount Algidus, and it 
seemed as if hope of delivery there was none. How- 
ever, five horsemen found means to escape and rej)ort at 
Rome the perilous condition of the consul and his army. 
Then the other consul consulted the senate, and it was 
agreed that the only man who could deliver the army 
was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. He was thereupon 
named dictator, and deputies were sent to acquaint him 
with his high dignity. 

2. He was called Cincinnatus, because he wore his 
hair in long curling locks, cincinni^ and, though he was a 
patrician he lived on his own small farm, like any plebeian 



138 STOEIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

yeoman. This farm was beyond tlie Tiber, and here he 
lived contentedly with his wife Racilia. 

3. Two years before he had been consul, and had 
been brought into great distress by the conduct of his 
son, Kseso. This Kseso was a wild and insolent young 
man, who despised the plebeians and hated their tribunes. 
One Yolscius Fictor alleged that he and his brother, an 
old and sickly man, had been attacked by Kseso and a 
party of young patricians by night, and that his brother 
had died of the treatment then received. The indigna- 
tion of the people rose high ; and Kseso was forced to go 
into exile. After this the young patricians became more 
insolent than ever, but they courted the poorest of the 
people, hoping to engage them on their side against the 
more respectable plebeians. 

4. ISText year all Rome was alarmed by finding that 
the Capitol had been seized by an enemy during the 
night. This enemy was Appius Herdonius, a Sabine, 
and with him was associated a band of desperate men, 
exiles and runaway slaves. The first demand he made 
was that all Roman exiles should be restored. The con- 
sul, P. Valerius, collected a force and took the Capitol, 
but was killed in the assault, and Cincinnatus, father of 
the banished Kseso, was chosen to succeed him. When 
he heard the news of his elevation, he turned to his wife, 
and said : " I fear, Racilia, our little field must remain 
this year unsown." Then he assumed the robe of state, 
and went to Rome. It was believed that Kseso had been 
concerned in the desperate enterprise that had just been 
defeated. What had become of him was unknown ; but 
that he was already dead was pretty certain ; and his father 
was very bitter against the tribunes and their party, to 
whom he attributed his son's disgrace and death. 

5. P. Valerius, the consul, had persuaded the plebeians 



ROMAN EEGORD. 139 

to join in the assault of the Capitol, by promising to gain 
them further privileges ; this promise Cincianatus refused 
to keep, and used all his power to frustrate the attempts 
of the tribunes to gain its fulfillment. At the end of his 
year of office, however, when the patricians wished to 
continue him in the consulship, he positively declined the 
ofler, and returned to his rustic life as if he had never 
left it. 

6. It was two years after these events that the depu- 
ties of the senate, who came to invest him with the en- 
signs of dictatorial power, found him working on his 
little farm. He was clad in his tunic only, and as the 
deputies advanced they bade him put on his toga, that he 
might receive the commands of the senate in seemly 
guise. So he wiped off the dust and sweat, and bade his 
wife fetch his toga, and asked anxiously whether all was 
right or no. Then the deputies told him how the army 
was beset by the JEqiiian foe, and how the Senate looked 
to him as the savior of the state. A boat was provided 
to carry him over the Tiber ; and when he reached the 
other bank, he was greeted by his family and friends, 
and the greater part of the senate, who followed him to 
the city, while he himself walked in state, with his four 
and twenty lictors. 

7. That same day the dictator and his master of horse 
came down into the forum, ordered all shops to be shut, 
and all business to be suspended. All men of the mili- 
tary age were to meet in the Field of Mars before sun- 
set, each man with five days' provisions and twelve stakes ; 
the older men were to get the provisions ready, while the 
soldiers were preparing the stakes. Thus all was got ready 
in time : the dictator led them forth ; and they marched 
so rapidly, that by midnight they had reached Mount 
Algidns, where the army of the consul was hemmed in. 



140 STORIES OF TBE OLDEN TIME. 

8. Then the dictator, when he had discovered the 
place of the enemy's army, ordered his men to put all 
their baggage down in one place, and then to surround 
the enemy's camp. They obeyed, and each one raising 
a shout, began digging the trench and fixing his stakes, so 
as to form a palisade round the enemy. The consul's 
army, w^hich was hemmed in, heard the shout of their 
brethren, and flew to arms ; and so hotly did they fight 
all night, that the ^quians had no time to attend to the 
new foe, and next morning found themselves hemmed in 
on all sides by the trench and palisade, so that they were 
now between two Eoman armies. They were thus forced 
to surrender. The dictator required them to give up 
their chiefs, and made their whole army pass under the 
yoke, which was formed by two spears fixed upright in 
the ground, and a third bound across them at the top. 

9. Cincinnatus returned to Rome amid the shouts and 

exultation of his soldiers : they gave him a golden crown, 

in token that he had saved the lives of many citizens ; 

and the senate decreed that he should enter the city in 

triumph. So Cincinnatus accomplished the purpose for 

which he had been made dictator in twenty-four hours. 

One evening he marched forth to deliver the consul, and 

the next evening he returned victorious. But he would 

not lay down his high ofiice till he had avenged his son. 

Accordingly, he summoned Yolscius Fictor, the accuser, 

and had him tried for perjury. The man was condemned 

and banished ; and then Cincinnatus once more returned 

to his wife and farm. 

Liddell. 



BOMAN RECORD. 



141 



XXIX -THE BOMAJV FATHER. 

1. Among the most interesting of the early legends of 
Rome is that of Yirginiiis, a soldier of the army belong- 
ing to the plebeian or- 
der. While performing 
his duty in the army 
which was encamped 
about twenty miles from 
Rome, his young daus^h- 
ter, Virginia, about fif- - 






'■> i '% 




The Seizure of Virginia, 



142 8T0BIE8 OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

teen years of age found her home with her near relatives 
in the city. Her beauty attracted the attention of Appius 
Claudius, one of the ten governors of Rome. With the 
view of getting possession of her person, he ordered one 
of his clients, M. Claudius by name, to lay hands upon her 
as she was going to her school in the Forum, and to claim 
her as his slave. The man did so ; and when the cries of 
her nurse brought a crowd round them, M. Claudius in- 
sisted on taking her before the decemvir, in order (as he 
said) to have the case fairly tried. Her friends consent- 
ed, and no sooner had Appius heard the matter, than he 
gave judgment that the maiden should be delivered up to 
the claimant, who should be bound to produce her in case 
her alleged father appeared to gainsay the claim. 

2. Now this judgment was directly against one of the 
laws of the Twelve Tables, which Appius himself had 
framed : for therein it was provided, that any person be- 
ing at freedom should continue free, till it was proved 
that such person was a slave. Icilius her betrothed, 
therefore, with Numitorius, the uncle of the maiden, 
boldly argued against the legality of the judgment ; and 
at length, Appius, fearing a tumult, agreed to leave the 
girl in their hands, on condition of their giving bail to 
bring her before hira next morning ; and then, if Yir- 
ginius did not appear, he would at once, he said, give her 
up to her pretended master. 

3. To this Icilius consented ; but he delayed giving 
bail, pretending that he could not procure it readily, and 
in the mean time he sent off a secret message to the camp 
on Algid us to inform Yirginius of what had happened. 
As soon as the bail was given, Appius also sent a message 
to the decemvirs in command of that army, ordering 
them to refuse leave of absence to Yirginius. But when 
this last message arrived, Yirginius was already half-way 



ROMAN RECORD. 143 

on his road to Rome ; for the distance was not more than 
twenty miles, and he had started at nightfall. 

4. Next morning early, Yirginius entered the forum 
leading his daughter by the hand, both clad in mean at- 
tire. A great number of friends and matrons attended 
him ; and he went about among the people entreating 
them to support him against the tyranny of Appius. So, 
when Appius came to take his place on the judgment- 
seat, he found the forum full of people, all friendly to 
Yirginius and his cause. But he inherited the boldness 
as well as the vices of his sires, and though he saw Yir- 
ginius standing there, ready to jDrove that he was the maid- 
en's father, he at once gave judgment against his own 
law, that Yirginia should be given up to M. Claudius, 
till it should be proved that she was free. The wretch 
came up to seize her, and the lictors kept the people from 
him. Yirginius now despairing of deliverance, begged 
Appius to allow him to ask the maiden whether she were 
indeed his daughter or no. " If," said he, '' I find I am 
not her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter." Under 
this pretense, he drew her aside to a spot upon the northern 
side of the forum (afterward called the Novae Tabernae), 
and here, snatching up a knife from a butcher's stall, he 
cried : " In this way only can I keep thee free ! " and, 
so saying, stabbed her to the heart. 

5. Then he turned to the tribunal, and said : " On 
thee, Appius, and on thy head be this blood." Appius 
cried out to sieze '^ the murderer " ; but the crowd made 
way for Yirginius, and he passed through them holding 
up the bloody knife, and went out at the gate, and made 
straight for the army. There, when the soldiers had 
heard his tale, they at once abandoned their decem viral 
generals, and marched to Rome. They were soon fol- 
lowed by the other army from the Sabine frontier ; for 



144 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

to them Icilius had gone, and Numitorius ; and thej 
found willing ears among the men. So the two armies 
joined their banners, elected new generals, and encamped 
upon the Aventine hill, the quarter of the plebeians. 

6. Meantime, the people at home had risen against Ap- 
pius ; and after driving him from the forum, they joined 
their armed fellow-citizens upon the Aventine. There the 
whole body of the commons, armed and unarmed, hung 
like a dark cloud ready to burst upon the city. 

Liddell. 

VIRCINIUS. 

1. When Appius Claudius saw that deed he shuddered 

and sank down. 
And hid his face some little space with the corner of 

his gown, 
Till with white lips and blood-shot eyes Virginius 

tottered nigh. 
And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the 

knife on high. 
" Oh ! dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the 

slain. 
By this dear blood, I cry to you, do right between us 

twain ; 
And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt with me and 

mine. 
Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian 

line ! " 
So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and went 

his way ; 
But first he cast one haggard glance to where the body 

lay, 
And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan ; and then 
with steadfast feet. 



ROMAN BECORD, 145 

Strode right across the market-place into the sacred 

street. 

2. Then up sprang Appius Claudius : " Stop him ; alive 

or dead ! 
Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings 

his head." 
He looked upon his clients, but none would work his 

will. 
He looked upon his lictors, but they trembled and 

stood still. 
And as Yirginius, through the press, his way in silence 

cleft, 
Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left. 
And he hatl^ passed in safety unto his woful home. 
And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are 

done in Rome. 

3. By this the flood of people was swollen from every side. 
And streets and porches round were filled with that 

o'erflowing tide, 
And close around the body gathered a little train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain. 
They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress 

crown, 
And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down. 
The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl 

and sneer. 
And in the Claudian note he cried, " What doth this 

rabble here? 
Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hitherward 

they stray ? 
Ho ! lictors, clear the market-place, and fetch the 

corpse away ! " 



146 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 

4. Till then the voice of pity and fury was not 

loud, 
But a deep, sullen murmur, wandered among the 

crowd. 
Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirl- 
wind on the deep, 
Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half-aroused 

from sleep. 
But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all, and 

strong. 
Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down into 

the throng. 
Those old men say, who saw that day of sorrow and 

of sin. 
That in the Koman Forum was never such a 

din. 
The wailing, hooting, cursing, the how^ls of grief and 

hate. 
Were heard beyond the Pincian hill, beyond the Latin 

gate. 

5. But close around the body, where stood the little 

train 
Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the 

slain. 
No cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers, 

and black frowns. 
And breaking up of benches, and girding np of 

gowns. 
'Twas w^ell the lictors might not pierce to where the 

maiden lay. 
Else surely had they been all twelve torn limb from 

limb that day. 



ROMAIC RECORD, 



147 




The Dead Virainia. 



Eight glad they were to struggle back, blood stream- 
ing from their heads, 

With axes all in splinters, and raiment all in 
shreds. 



6. Then Appins Claudius gnawed his lip, and the blood 
left his cheek ; 



148 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

And thrice he beckoned with his hand, and thrice he 

strove to speak ; 
And thrice the tossing forum sent up a frightful 

yell- 
" See, see, thou dog ! what thou hast done ; and hide 

thy shame in hell, 
Thou that wouldst make our maidens slaves, must first 

make slaves of men. 
Tribunes ! — Hurrah for tribunes ! Down with the 

wicked Ten ! " 
And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing 

through the air 
Pebbles, and bricks, and potsherds, all round the curule 

chair ; 
And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trembling 

came ; 
For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught but 

shame. 

7. So now 'twas seen of Appius. When stones began 

to fly, 
He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and 

smote upon his thigh. 
'' Kind clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this fray! 
Must I be torn to pieces ? Home, home the nearest 

way." 
While yet he spake, and looked around with a bewil- 
dered stare, 
Four sturdy lictors put their necks beneath the curule 

chair ; 
And fourscore clients on the left, and forescore on the 

right. 
Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and loins 

girt up for fight. 



ROMAN RECORD. 149 

8, But, though without or staff or sword, so furious was 

the throng. 
That scarce the train, with might and main, could bring 

their lord along. 
Twelve times the crowd made at him ; five times they 

seized his gown ; 
Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got 

him down : 
And sharper came the pelting ; and evermore the 

yell- 
" Tribunes ! we will have tribunes ! " rose with a 

louder swell : 
And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered 

sail, 
When raves the Adriatic beneath an eastern 

gale. 
When the Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of 

spume. 
And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil of 

inky gloom. 
One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath 

the ear ; 
And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with 

pain and fear. 
His cursed head, that he was wont to liold so high 

with pride, 
Now, like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed 

from side to side ; 
And when his stout retainers had brought him to his 

door, 
His neck and face were all one cake of filth and clotted 

gore. 



150 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

XXX.-ABCHIMEDES. 

1. This extraordinary man was a native of Syracuse, a 
city of Sicily. He was born two hnndred and eighty- 
eight years before the Christian era, and from fifty to one 
hundred years after the appearance of the far-famed Eu- 
clid. Who his parents were, and what was their rank in 
life are not known, though it is claimed that he was in 
some way related to Hiero the king of Syracuse. It is said 
that Hiero considered himself greatly honored by such a 
relation, and well he might be, for science and genius com- 
bined are much higher than royalty. Besides it is proba- 
ble that the name of the monarch would never have been 
preserved except in connection with the great philosopher. 

2. By whom he was instructed in the elements of 
education, history fails to inform us, but it tells us of the 
progress he made in mechanics and geometry, and for the 
sake of the quiet necessary to pursue these branches he 
gave up all the advantages of a political life derived from 
his connection with the king. His favorite studies had 
more charms for him than the glitter of events or the 
plunder of conquered cities. 

3. After studying at home until he could learn noth- 
ing more in the city of his birth, he repaired to Alexan- 
dria in Egypt, at that time the educational center that 
had inherited the philosophy and culture of Athens. 
Here he studied for some years and became acquainted 
with the most distinguished scholars of his day. Among 
his most intimate friends was Conon, a famous mathe- 
matician from Samos, who often exchanged problems with 
him for solution. While staying at Alexandria he began 
his work of practical invention which he afterward turned 
to such good account. 

4. Some of his ardent admirers have maintained that 



ROMAR RECORD. 



151 




Archimedes. 



152 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

Archimedes taught the Egyptians more than they taught 
him ; that while he imbibed philosophy and book learn- 
ing, he more than repaid the New Athens by inventions 
which were of the greatest use in the ordinary work of 
the home and the shop. Although we do not know ex- 
actly what he turned his hand to, we are quite sure that 
in many ways he performed feats that have scarcely been 
surpassed in modern times. 

5. After his return to his native city, Archimedes 
continued his studies with unabated vigor, often neglect- 
ing his food and the care of his person when a new prob- 
lem was to be solved or a new invention perfected. The 
method of determining the relative amount of gold and 
base metal in Hiero's crown occurred to him while in his 
bath, and without stopping to put on his clothes, he is said 
to have rushed through the streets exclaiming " Eureka I 
Eureka!" 

6. To prevent the ruin of his health his servants were 
sometimes obliged to take him by main force to the table 
and bath, and to take his daily exercise. Hiero at one 
time expressed an admiration of some of his inventions 
when Archimedes replied that had he a place to ^^ 
his machines upon he could move the earth itself. His 
days were passed in study and retirement until the safe- 
ty of his native city called him out to take part in its 
defense. 

7. During the wars between the Komans and Cartha- 
ginians, the people of Sicily, and especially the Syracu- 
sans, had for a long time remained neutral or been in alli- 
ance with the Romans. But a Carthaginian interest 
sprung up which mastered and sought to extend itself 
over the whole island. As soon as the news of this po- 
litical movement and rebellion reached Marcellus, the 
Roman general, he hastened with a strong force into 



ROMAN RECORD. 153 

Sicily, and after the capture of the principalities he laid 
siege to Syracuse. 

8. Here he met with an unexpected check. The in- 
ventive genius of Archimedes enabled the Syracusans to 
successfully defend their city for three years. He so im- 
proved the warlike instruments for the discharge of mis- 
siles, that he repeatedly beat back the most determined 
assault, and the Romans were more than once on the 
point of abandoning the siege, believing that the city was 
defended by the gods. By means of long and powerful 
levers, together with grappling irons, he is said to have de- 
stroyed many of the Roman galleys when they ap- 
proached the walls of the city ; and when they retired for 
safety he set them on fire by a combination of immense 
burning-glasses. 

9. The story of these exploits is told by the Romans 
themselves, and there can be no doubt but here Science 
gained one of her greatest triumphs. The success of the 
new engine was evidently so great, that an element of 
superstition entered into the record. But the triumph of 
genius was not complete. During a festival in honor of 
Diana when wine flowed freely, the guards neglected to 
man some particular part of the walls. The Romans ob- 
serving this scaled the walls and made themselves mas- 
ters of the city. 

10. Amid the plunder and carnage which followed, 
Archimedes w^as killed. Marcellus had given orders for 
his special protection, but the deed was done by a Roman 
soldier. One account says that he was slain in his labora- 
tory where he was found studying a problem, and he re- 
fused to move until he had completed the solution. An- 
other account says that he was put to death on the street 
while drawing a geometrical figure in the sand. The 
third and most rational account is that while bearing some 



154 



STORIES OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 



boxes of mathematical instruments to Marcellus he was 
killed by a soldier who supposed that the boxes contained 
treasure. His death happened about 210 b. c. at the age 
of seventy-six. 



XXXI-THE DEATH OF CMSAR. 

1. The greatest of Eome's generals, and one of the 
greatest of military chieftains of all ages, was Julius 

Csesar. Of a patrician 
family, he was one of the 
most accomplished men 
of Kome. He was great 
in civil as well as mili- 
tary life. He became 
the most popular of the 
greatest men of Rome's 
most brilliant days. His 
military feats rivaled 
those of Alexander, and 
he extended the rule of 
Rome through all cen- 
tral Europe, completely 
subduing all of the tribes 
with which he came in 
contact. From his north- 
ern victories he turned 
his victorious army south, 
crossed the Rubicon, 

which marked the border of his own province, and seized 

the control of Rome. 

2. In the management of civil affairs he was as suc- 




Ccesar {enlarged from a Roman Coin). 



ROMAN EEGORD. 155 

cessful as in the field. He corrected abuses that had 
crept into the pohtical management of affairs, and placed 
new safeguards around the rights of the people. 

3. His administration was almost as brilliant as that 
of Pericles in Athens ; yet the principal nobles did not 
love him, and with the people at large he suffered still 
more, from a belief that he wished to be made king. On 
his return from Spain he had been named dictator and 
imperator for life. His head had for some time been 
placed on the money of the republic, a regal honor con- 
ceded to none before him. Quintilis, the fifth month of 
the old calendar, received from him the name which it 
still bears. The senate took an oath to guard the safety 
of his person. 

4. He was honored with sacrifices, and honors hitherto 
reserved for the gods. But Cgesar was not satisfied. He 
was often heard to quote the sentiment of Euripides, that, 
'^ if any violation of law is excusable, it is excusable for 
the sake of gaining sovereign power." It was no doubt 
to ascertain the popular sentiments that various proposi- 
tions were made toward an assumption of the title of 
king. His statues in the forum were found crowned with 
a diadem ; but two of the tribunes tore it off, and the mob 
applauded. 

5. On the 26th of January, at the great Latin festival 
on the Alban Mount, voices in the crowd saluted him as 
king ; but mutterings of discontent reached his ears, and 
he promptly said : " I am no king, but Csesar." The final 
attempt was made at the Lupercalia on the 15th of Feb- 
ruary. Antony, in the character of one of the priests of 
Pan, approached the dictator as he sat presiding in his 
golden chair, and offered him an embroidered band, like 
the diadem of Oriental sovereigns. The applause which 
followed was partial, and the dictator put the offered gift 



156 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

aside. Then a burst of genuine cheering greeted him, 
which waxed louder still when he rejected it a second 
time. Old traditional feeling was too strong at Rome 
even for Caesar's daring temper to brave it. The peoj)le 
would submit to the despotic rule of a dictator, but would 
not have a king. 

6. Other causes of discontent had been agitating vari- 
ous classes at Rome. The more fierj partisans of Caesar 
disapproved of his clemency ; the more prodigal sort 
were angry at his regulations for securing the provincials 
from oppression. The populace of the city complained 
— the genuine Romans, at seeing favor extended to pro- 
vincials, those of foreign origin because they had been 
excluded from the corn bounty. Caesar, no doubt, was 
eager to return to his army, and escape from the in- 
creas ing difficulties which beset his civil government. 
But as soon as he joined the army, he would assume 
monarchical power in virtue of the late decree ; and this 
consideration urged the discontented to a plot against his 
hfe. 

Y. The difficulty w^as to find a leader. At length 
Marcus Junius Brutus accepted the post of danger. This 
young man, a nephew of Cato, had taken his uncle as an 
example for his public life. But he was fonder of specu- 
lation than of action. His habits were reserved, rather 
those of a student than a statesman. He had reluctantly 
joined the cause of Pompey, for he could ill forget that 
it was by Pompey that his father had been put to death 
in cold blood. After the battle of Pharsalia he was treat- 
ed by Caesar almost like a son. In the present year he 
had been proclaimed praetor of the city, with the prom- 
ise of the consulship. But the discontented remnants of 
the senatorial party assailed him with constant reproaches. 
The name of Brutus, dear to all Roman patriots, was made 



ROMAN- RECORD. 157 

a rebuke to him. " His ancestors expelled the Tarquins ; 
could he sit quietly under a king's rule 'V At the foot 
of the statue of that ancestor, or on his own prsetorian 
tribunal, notes were placed, containing phrases such as 
these : " Thou art not Brutus : would thou wert." " Bru- 
tus, thou sleepest." " Awake, Brutus." Gradually he was 
brought to think that it was his duty as a patriot to put an 
end to Csesar's rule even by taking his life. 

8. The most notable of those who arrayed themselves 
under him was Cassius. This man's motive is unknown. 
He had never taken much part in politics ; he had made 
submission to the conquerer, and had been received with 
marked favor. Some personal reason probably actuated 
his unquiet spirit. More than sixty persons were in the 
secret, most of them, like Brutus and Cassius, under per- 
sonal obligations to the dictator. Publius Servilius Casca 
was by his grace tribune of the plebs. Lucius Tullius 
Cimber was promised the government of Bithynia. De- 
cius Brutus, one of his old Gallic officers, was prgetor 
elect, and was to be gratified with the rich province of 
Cisalpine Gaul. Caius Trebonius, another trusted officer, 
had received every favor which the dictator could bestow ; 
he had just laid down the consulship, and was on the eve 
of departure for the government of Asia. Quintius Liga- 
rius had lately accepted a pardon from the dictator, and 
rose from a sick bed to join the conspirators. 

9. A meeting of the senate was called for the Ides of 
March, at which Caesar was to be present. This was the 
day appointed for the murder. The secret had oozed out. 
Many persons warned Csesar that some danger was im- 
pending. A Greek soothsayer told him of the very day. 
On the morning of the Ides his wife arose so disturbed by 
dreams, that she persuaded him to relinquish his purpose 
of presiding in the senate, and he sent Antony in his stead. 



158 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

10. This change of purpose was reported after the 
House was formed. The conspirators were in despair. 
Decius Brutus at once went to Caesar, told him that the 
Fathers were only waiting to confer upon him the sover- 
eign power which he desired, and begged him not to listen 
to auguries and dreams. Cresar was persuaded to change 
his purpose, and was carried forth in his litter. On his 
way, a slave who had discovered the conspiracy tried to 
attract his notice, but was unable to reach him for the 
crowd. A Greek philosopher, named Artemidorus, suc- 
ceeded in putting a roll of ^^aper into his hand, contain- 
ing full information of the conspiracy ; but Caesar, sup- 
posing it to be a petition, laid it by his side for a more 
convenient season. Meanwhile, the conspirators had rea- 
son to think that their plot had been discovered. A friend 
came up to Casca and said, " Ah, Casca, Brutus has told 
me your secret ! " The conspirator started, but was re- 
lieved by the next sentence : " Where will you find money 
for the expenses of the aedileship ? " More serious alarm 
was felt when Popillius Laenas remarked to Brutus and 
Cassius : " You have my good wishes ; but what you do, 
do quickly " — especially when the same senator stepped 
up to Caesar on his entering the house, and began whis- 
pering in his ear. So terrified was Cassius, that he thought 
of stabbing himself instead of Caesar, till Brutus .quietly 
observed, that the gestures of Popillius indicated that he 
was asking a favor, not revealing a fatal secret. Caesar 
took his seat without further delay. 

11. As was agreed, Cimber presented a petition pray- 
ing for his brother's recall from banishment ; and all the 
conspirators pressed round the dictator, urging his fa- 
vorable answer. Displeased at their importunity, Caesar 
attempted to rise. At that moment Cimber seized the 
lappet of his robe, and pulled him down ; and immedi- 



160 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

ately Casca struck liim from the side, but inflicted only a 
slight wound. Then all drew their daggers and assailed 
him. Caesar for a time defended himself with the gown 
folded over his left arm, and the sharp-pointed style which 
he held in his right hand for writing on the wax of his 
tablets. But when he saw Brutus among the assassins, he 
exclaimed, " You, too, Brutus ! " and covering his face with 
his gown, offered no further resistance. In their eagerness, 
some blows intended for their victim fell upon themselves. 
But enough reached Csesar to do the bloody work. Pierced 
by twenty-three wounds, he fell at the base of Pompey's 
statue, which had been removed after Pharsalia by Antony, 
but had been restored by the magnanimity of Caesar. 

12. Thus died " the foremost man of all the world," 
a man who failed in nothing that he attempted. He 
might, Cicero thought, have been a great orator ; his " Com- 
mentaries" remain to prove that he was a great writer. 
As a general he had few superiors, as a statesman and 
politician no equal. That which stamps him as a man of 
true greatness, is the entire absence of vanity and self- 
conceit from his character. He paid, indeed, great at- 
tention to his personal appearance, even when his hard 
life and unremitting activity had brought on fits of an 
epileptic nature, and left him with that meager visage 
which is familiar to us from his coins. Even then he was 
sedulous in arranging his robes, and was pleased to have 
the privilege of wearing a laurel crown to hide the scanti- 
ness of his hair. But these were foibles too trifling to be 
taken as symptoms of real vanity. His successes in war, 
achieved by a man who in his forty-ninth year had hardly 
seen a camp, add to our conviction of his real genius. 
These successes were due not so much to scientific ma- 
noeuvres, as to rapid audacity of movement, and mastery 
over the wills of men. 



EOMAN RECORD. 161 

13. The effect of Caesar's fall was to cause a renewal 
of bloodshed for another half generation ; and then his 
work was finished by a far less general ruler. Those who 
slew Caesar were guilty of a great crime, and a still greater 

blunder. 

Liddell, 



XXXII-HOW BOMAJiS LIVED. 

1. The Roman house at first was extremely simple, 
being of but one room, called the atrium or darkened 
chamber, because its walls were stained by the smoke 
that rose from the fire upon the hearth, and with diffi- 
culty found its way. through a hole in the roof. The 
aperture also admitted light and rain, the water that 
dripped from the roof being caught in a cistern that was 
formed in the middle of the room. The atrium was en- 
tered by way of a vestibule open to the sky, in which the 
gentleman of the house put on his toga as he went out. 
Double doors admitted the visitor to the entrance-hall, or 
ostium. 

2. There was a tlireshold upon which it was unlucky 
to place the left foot ; a knocker afl:orded means of an- 
nouncing one's approach, and a porter, who had a small 
room at the side, opened the door, showing the caller the 
words Cave canem (beware of the dog), or Salve (welcome), 
or perchance the dog himself reached out toward the vis- 
itor as far as his chain would allow. Sometimes, too, there 
would be noticed in the mosaic of the pavement the repre- 
sentation of the faithful domestic animal which has so long 
been the companion as well as the protector of his human 
friend. Perha^DS myrtle or laurel might be seen on a door, 
indicating that a marriage was in process of celebration, 



162 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 

or a chaplet annoiiucmg tlie happy birth of an heir. Cy- 
press, probably set in pots in the vestibule, indicated a 
death, as a crape festoon does upon our own door-handles, 
while torches, lamps, wreaths, garlands, branches of trees, 
showed that there w^as joy from some cause in the house. 

3. In the " black room " the bed stood ; there the 
meals were cooked and eaten, there the goodman re- 
ceived his friends, and there the goodwife sat in the 
midst of her maidens spinning. The original house grew 
larger in the course of time : wdngs were built on the 
sides — and the Romans called them wings as well as we 
{cila, a wing). Beyond the black room a recess was built 
in which the family records and archives were preserved, 
but with it for a long period the Roman house stopped 
its growth. 

4. Before the empire came, however, there had been 
great progress in making the dwelling convenient as well 
as luxurious. Another hall had been built out from the 
room of archives, leading to an open court, surrounded by 
columns, known as the peristylum {peri, about, stidos, a 
pillar), which was sometimes of great magnificence. Bed- 
chambers were made separate from the atrium, but they 
were small, and would not seem very convenient to mod- 
ern eyes. 

5. The dining-room, called the triclinumi (Greek, 
liline, a bed) from its three couches, was a very impor- 
tant apartment. In it were three lounges surrounding a 
table, on each of which three guests might be accommo- 
dated. The couches were elevated above the table, and 
each man lay almost flat on his breast, resting on his left 
elbow, and having his right hand free to use, thus putting 
the head of one near the breast of the man behind him, 
and making natural the expression that he lay in the 
bosom of the other. As the guests were thus arranged 



ROMAN RECORD. 



163 



by threes, it was natural that the rule should have been 
made that a party at dinner should not be less in number 
than the Graces, nor more than the Muses, though it has 
remained a useful one ever since. 

6. Before the republic came to an end, it was so fash- 
ionable to have a book-room that ignorant persons who 
might not be able to read even the titles of their own 
books endeavored to give themselves the appearance of 
erudition by building book-rooms in their houses, and fur- 
nishing them with elegance. The books were in cases ar- 




Intcrior of a Roman Bath-Room^ Ruins of Pompeii. 

ranged around the walls in convenient manner, and busts 
and statues of the Muses, of Minerva, and of men of note 
were used then as they are now for ornaments. House- 
philosophers were often employed to open to the unin- 
structed the stores of wisdom contained in the libraries. 
T. As wealth and luxury increased, the Romans added 



164 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

the bath-rooin to tlieir other apartments. In the early 
ages the J had bathed for comfort and cleanliness once a 
week, but the warm bath was apparently unknown to 
them. In time this became very common, and in the 
days of Cicero there were hot and cold baths, both public 
and private, which were well patronized. Some were 
heated by fires in flues, directly under the floors, which 
produced a vapor-bath. The bath was, however, consid- 
ered a luxury, and at a later date it was held a capital 
0"ffense to indulge in one on a religious holiday, and the 
public baths were closed when any misfortune happened 
to the republic. 

8. Comfort and convenience united to take the cook- 
ing out of the atrium into a separate apartment known as 
the culina, or kitchen, in w^hich was a raised platform on 
which coals might be burned, and the processes of broil- 
ing, boiling, and roasting might be carried on in a primi- 
tive manner, much like the arrangement stiU to be seen 
at Rome. On the tops of the houses, after a while, ter- 
races were planned for the purpose of basking in the sun, 
and sometimes they were furnished with shrubs, fruit- 
trees, and even fish-ponds. Often there were upward of 
fifty rooms in a house on a single floor ; but in the course 
of time land became so valuable that other stories were 
added, and many lived in flats. A flat was sometimes 
called an insula, which meant, properly, a house not 
joined to another, and afterward was applied to hired 
lodgings. Domus, a house, meant a dwelling occupied 
by one family, whether it were an insula or not. 

9. The floors of these rooms were sometimes, but not 
often, laid with boards, and generally were formed of 
stones, tiles, bricks, or some sort of cement. In the 
richer dwellings they were often inlaid with mosaics of 
elegant patterns. The walls were often faced with mar- 



ROMAN RECORD. 



165 



ble, but they were usually adorned with paintings ; the 
ceilings were left uncovered, the beams supporting the 




Lares and Fenates. 



floor or the roof above being visible, though it was fre- 
quently arched over. The means of lighting either by 
day or night, were defective. The atrium was, as we 
have seen, lighted from above, and the same was true of 
other apartments, those at the side being illuminated from 



166 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 

tlie larger ones in the middle of the house. There were 
windows, however, in the upper stories, though they were 
not protected by glass, but covered with shutters or lat- 
tice-work, and, at a later period, were glazed with sheets 
of mica. Smoking lamps, hanging from the ceiling or 
supported by candelabra, or candles gave a gloomy light 
by night in the houses, and torches without. 

10. The sun was chiefly depended upon for heat, for 
there were no proper stoves, though braziers were used to 
burn coals upon, the smoke escaping through the aper- 
ture in the ceiling, and, in rare cases, hot-air furnaces 
were constructed below, the heat being conveyed to the 
upper rooms through pipes. There has been a dispute re- 
garding chimneys, but it seems almost certain that the 
Eomans had none in their dwellings, and indeed, there 
was little need of them for purposes of artificial warmth 
in so moderate a climate as theirs. 

11. Such were some of the chief traits of the city- 
houses of the Romans. Besides these there were villas in 
the country, some of which were simply farm-houses, and 
others places of rest and luxury supported by the resi- 
dents of cities. The farm-villa was placed, if possible, in 
a spot secluded from visitors, protected from the severest 
winds, and from the malaria of marshes, in a well-watered 
place, near the foot of a well-wooded mountain. It had 
accommodations for the kitchen, the wine-press, the farm 
superintendent, the slaves, the animals, the crops, and the 
other products of the farm. There were baths, and cel- 
lars for the wine and for the confinement of the slaves 
who might have to be chained. 

12. Yarro thus describes life at a rural household : " Ma- 
nius summons his people to rise with the sun, and in per- 
son conducts them to the scene of their daily work. The 
youths make their own bed, which labor renders soft to 



ROMAN RECORD. 167 

them, and supply themselves with water-pot, and lamp. 
Their drink is the clear fresh spring ; their fare bread, 
with onions as a relish. Everything prospers in house 
and field. The house is no work of art, but an architect 




Roman Villa. 

might learn symmetry from it. Care is taken of the 
field that it shall not be left disorderly, and waste or go 
to ruin through slovenliness or neglect ; and in return, 
grateful Ceres wards off damage from the produce, that 
the high-piled sheaves may gladden the heart of the hus- 
bandman. Here hospitality still holds good, the bread- 
pantry, the wine-vat, and the store of sausages on the 
rafter, lock and key are at the service of the traveler, and 
piles of food are set before him ; contented, the sated 
guest sits, looking neither before him, nor behind, dozing 
by the hearth in the kitchen. The warmest double wool 
sheepskin is spread as a couch for him. Here people 



168 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

still, as good burgesses, obey the righteous law which 
neither out of envy injures the innocent, nor out of favor 
pardons the guilty. Here they speak no evil against their 
neighbors. Here they trespass not with their feet on the 
sacred hearth, but honor the gods with devotion and with 
sacrifices ; throw to the familiar spirit his little bit of 
flesh into his appointed little dish, and when the master 
of the household dies accompany the bier with the same 
prayer with which those of his father and of his grandfa- 
ther were borne forth." 

Arthur Gilman, M. A. " The Story of Rome y 

Putnam's " Stories of the Nations Series.''' 




MEDI^A^AL RECOED. 



XXXIII -CO J^VERSIOJ^ OF THE EJYGLISH. 

1. Some time before Gregory became Pope, perhaps 
about the year 574, he went one day through the market 
at Rome, where, among other things, there were still 
men, women, and children to be sold as slaves. He saw 
there some beautiful boys who had just been brought by 
a slave-merchant, boys with a fair skin and long fair hair, 
as English boys then would have. 

2. He was told that they were heathen boys from the 
Isle of Britain. Gregory was sorry to think that forms 
which were so fair without should have no light within, 
and he asked again what was the name of their nation. 
" Angles^'''' he was told. " Angles^^^ said Gregory ; " they 
have the faces of angels^ and they ought to be made 
fellow -heirs of the angels in heaven. But of what 
province or tribe of the Angles are they ? " "Of Deira^^ 
said the merchant. " De ira ! " said Gregory ; " then 
they must be delivered from the wrath of God. And 



170 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

what is the name of their king?" '^ jEllaP '^ jElla ; 
then Alleluia shall be sung in his land." 

3. Gregory then went to the Pope, and asked him to 
send missionaries into Britain, of whom he himself would 
be one, to convert the English. The Pope was willing, 
but the people of Kome, among whom Gregory was a 
priest and was much beloved, w^ould not let him go. So 
nothing came of the matter for some time. 

4. We do not know whether Gregory was able to do 
anything for the poor English boys whom he saw in the 
market, but he certainly never forgot his plan for con- 
verting the English people. After a w^hile he became 
Pope himself. Of course, he now no longer thought of 
going into Britain himself, as he had enough to do in 
Kome. But he now had power to send others. He 
therefore presently sent a company of monks, with one 
called Augustine at their head, who became the first 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and is called the Apostle of 
the English. 

5. This was in 597. The most powerful king in 
Britain at this time was J^thelbert, of Kent, who is said 
to have been lord over all the kings south of the Humber. 
This ^thelbert had done what was very seldom done by 
English kings then or for a long time after ; he had mar- 
ried a foreign wife, the daughter of Chariberth, one of 
the kings of the Franks, in Gaul. 

6. Now, the Franks had become Christians ; so when 
the Prankish queen came over to Kent, ^thelbert prom- 
ised that she should be allowed to keep to her own re- 
hgion without let or hindrance. She brought with her, 
therefore, a Prankish bishop named Lindhard, and the 
queen and her bishop used to w^orship God in a little 
church near Canterbury, called Saint Martin's, which had 
been built in the Roman times. So you see that both 



MEDIEVAL RECORD. 171 

^thelbert and his people must have known something 
about the Christian faith before Augustine came. 

7. It does not, however, seem that either the king or 
any of his people had at all thought of turning Christians. 
This seems strange when one reads how easily they were 
converted afterward. One would have thought that 
Bishop Lindhard would have been more likely to convert 
them than Augustine, for, being a Frank, he would speak 
a tongue not very different from English, while Augustine 
spoke Latin, and, if he ever knew English at all, he must 
have learned it after he came into the island. 1 can not 
tell you for certain why this was. Perhaps they did not 
think that a man who had merely come in the queen's 
train was so well worth listening to as one who had come 
on purpose all the way from the great city of Rome, to 
which all the West still looked up as the capital of the 
world. 

8. So xiugustine and his companions set out from 
Rome, and passed through Gaul, and came into Britain, 
even as Caesar had done ages before. But this time Rome 
had sent forth men not to conquer lands, but to win souls. 
They landed first in the Isle of Thanet, which joins close 
to the east part of Kent, and thence they sent a message 
to King ^thelbert, saying why they had come into his 
land. The king sent word back to them to stay in the 
isle till he had fully made up his mind how to treat them ; 
and he gave orders that they should be well taken care of 
meanwhile. 

9. After a little while he came himself into the isle, 
and bade them come and tell him what they had to say. 
He met them in the open air, for he would not meet them 
in a house, as he thought they might be wizards, and that 
they might use some charm or spell, which he thought 
would have less power out-of-doors. So they came, car- 



172 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

rying an image of our Lord on the cross, wrought in sil- 
ver, and singing litanies as they came. And when they 
came before the king, they preached the gospel to him 
and to those who were with him. 

10. So King ^thelbert hearkened to them, and he 
made answer like a good and wise man. " Your words 
and promises," said he, "sound very good unto me; but 
they are new and strange, and I can not believe them all 
at once, nor can I leave all that I and my fathers, and the 
whole English folk, have believed so long. But I see that 
ye have come from a far country to tell us that which ye 
yourselves hold for truth ; so ye may stay in the land, 
and I will give you a house to dwell in and food to eat ; 
and ye may preach to my folk, and if any man of them 
will believe as ye believe, I hinder him not." 

11. So he gave them a house to dwell in in the royal 
city of Canterbury, and he let them preach to the people. 
And, as they drew near to the city, they carried their 
silver image of the Lord Jesus, and sang litanies, saying, 
"We pray Thee, O Lord, let thy anger and thy wrath 
be turned away from this city, and from thy holy house, 
because we have sinned. Alleluia ! " 

12. Thus Augustine and his companions dwelt at Can- 
terbury, and worshiped in the old charch where the 
queen worshiped, and preached to the men of the land. 
And many men hearkened to them and were baptized, 
and before long King ^thelbert himself believed and 
was baptized ; and before the year was out there were 
added to the Church more than ten thousand souls. 

FreemaUo 



MEDIu^VAL RECORD. 173 

XXXIV -LEO THE SLAVE. 

1. In a. d. 533, the Franks had fully gained posses- 
sion of all the north of Gaul, except Brittany. Clo- 
vis had made them Christians in name, but they still 
remained horribly savage, and the life of the Gauls 
under them was wretched. The Burgundians and Visi- 
goths, who had peopled the southern and eastern prov- 
inces, were far from being equally violent. They had 
entered on their settlements on friendly terms, and even 
showed considerable respect for the Roman-Gallic sen- 
ators, magistrates, and higher clergy, who all remained 
unmolested in their dignity and riches. Thus it was that 
Gregory, Bishop of Langres, was a man of high rank and 
consideration in the Burgundian kingdom, wdience the 
Christian Queen Clotilda had come ; and even after the 
Burgundians had been subdued by the four sons of Clo- 
vis, he continued a rich and prosperous man. 

2. After one of the many quarrels and reconciliations 
between these fierce brethren, there was an exchange of 
hostages for the observance of the terms of the treaty. 
These were not taken from among the Franks, who were 
too proud to submit to captivity, but from among the 
Gaulish nobles, a mncli more convenient arrangement for 
the Frankish kings, wdio cared for the life of a "Roman" 
infinitely less than even for the life of a Frank. Thus 
many young men of senatorial families were exchanged 
between the domains of Theodoric to the south, and of 
Hildebert to the northward, and quartered among Frank- 
ish chiefs, with whom at first they had nothing more to 
endure than the discomfort of living as guests with such 
rude and coarse barbarians. 

3. But ere long fresh quarrels arose between Theodoric 
and Hildebert, and the unfortunate hostages were at once 



174 STORIES OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 

turned into slaves. Some of them ran away, if they were 
near the frontier ; but Bishop Gregory was in the utmost 
anxiety about his nephew Attains, who had been last 
heard of as being placed under the charge of a Frank 
who lived between Treves and Metz. The bishop sent 
emissaries to make secret inquiries, and they brought back 
the word that the unfortunate youth had been reduced to 
slavery, and was made to keep his master's herds of horses. 
Upon this the uncle again sent off his messengers with 
presents for the ransom of Attains ; but the Frank rejected 
them, saying, " One of such high race can only be re- 
deemed for ten pounds weight of gold." 

4. This was beyond the bishop's means, and, while he 
was considering how to raise the sum, the slaves were all 
lamenting for their young lord, to whom they were much 
attached, till one of them, named Leo, the cook to the 
household, came to the bishop, saying to him, " If thou 
wilt give me leave to go, I will deliver him from cap- 
tivity." The bishop rejDlied that he gave free permission, 
and the slave set off for Treves, and there watched anx- 
iously for an opportunity of gaining access to Attains ; 
but, though the poor young man, no longer daintily 
dressed, bathed, and perfumed, but ragged and squalid, 
might be seen following his herds of horses, he was too 
well watched for any communication to be held with him. 

5. Then Leo went to a person, probably of Gallic 
birth, and said : " Come with me to this barbarian's house, 
and there sell me for a slave. Thou shalt have the money ; 
I only ask thee to help me thus far." Both repaired to 
the Frank's abode, the chief among a confused collection 
of clay and timber huts, intended for shelter during eating 
and sleeping. The Frank looked at the slave, and asked 
him what he could do. " I can dress whatever is eaten 
at lordly tables," replied Leo. " I am afraid of no rival ; 



medijEval record. 175 

I only tell thee the truth when I say that, if thou wouldst 
give a feast to the king, I could send it up in the neatest 
manner." " Ha ! " said the barbarian, " the Sun's day is 
coming. I shall invite my kinsmen and friends. Cook 
me such a dinner as may amaze them, and make them 
say, 'We saw nothing better in the king's house.'" 
" Let me have plenty of poultry, and I will do according 
to my master's bidding," returned Leo. 

6. Accordingly, he was purchased for twelve gold- 
pieces, and on the Sunday, as Bishop Gregory of Tours, 
who tells the story, explains, that the barbarians called the 
Lord's day, he produced a banquet after the most ap- 
proved Roman fashion, much to the surprise and delight 
of the Franks, who had never tasted such delicacies be- 
fore, and complimented their host upon them all the 
evening. Leo gradually became a great favorite, and was 
placed in authority over the other slaves, to whom he 
gave out their portions of broth and meat. But from the 
first he liad not shown any recognition of Attains, and had 
signed to him that they must be strangers to one another. 

7. A whole year passed away in this manner, when 
one day Leo wandered, as if for pastime, into the plain 
where Attains was watching the horses, and sitting down 
on the ground at some paces off, and with his back toward 
his young master so that they might not be seen talking 
together, he said : *•' This is the time for thoughts of home ! 
When thou hast led the horses to the stable to-night, sleep 
not. Be ready at the first call ! " 

8. That day the Frank lord was entertaining a large 
number of guests, among them his daughter's husband, a 
jovial young man, given to jesting. On going to rest he 
fancied he should be thirsty at night, and called Leo to 
place a pitcher of hydromel by his bedside. As the slave 
was setting it down, the Frank looked slyly from under 



176 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

his eyelids and said in joke, " Tell me, my father-in-law's 
trusty man, wilt thou not some night take one of his 
horses and run away to thine own home ? " 

9. "Please God, it is what I mean to do this very 
night," answered the Gaul, so undauntedly that the Frank 
took it as a jest, and answered, " I shall look out, then, 
that thou dost not carry off anything of mine," and then 
Leo left him, both laughing. 

10. All were soon asleep, and the cook crept out to the 
stable, where Attains usually slept among the horses. He 
was broad awake now, and ready to saddle the two swift- 
est ; but he had no weapon, except a small lance, so Leo 
boldly went back to his master's sleeping hut, and took 
down his sword and shield, but not without awakening 
him enough to ask who was moving. " It is I, Leo," was 
the answer ; " I have been to call Attalus to take out the 
horses early. He sleeps as hard as a drunkard." The 
Frank went to sleep again, quite satisfied, and Leo, carry- 
ing out the weapons, soon made Attalus feel like a free 
man and a noble once more. 

11. They passed unseen out of the inclosure, mounted 
their horses and rode along the great Koman road from 
Treves as far as the Meuse, but they found the bridge 
guarded, and were obliged to wait till night, when they 
cast their horses loose, and swam tlie river, supporting 
themselves on boards that they had found on the bank. 
They had as yet had no food since the supper at their 
master's, and were thankful to find a plum-tree in the 
wood, with fruit, to refresh them in small degree, before 
they lay down for the night. The next morning they 
went on in the direction of Rheims, carefully listening 
whether there were any sounds behind, until, on the 
broad, hard-paved causeway, they heard the trampling of 
horses. Happily a bush was near, behind which they 



medijEVAL record. 177 

crept, and here the riders actually halted for a few mo- 
ments to arrange their harness. Men and horses were 
both those they feared, and they trembled at hearing one 
say : " Woe is me that those rogues have made off, and 
have not been cauglit ! On my salvation, if I catch them, I 
will have one hung, and the other chopped into little bits ! " 

12. It was no small comfort to hear the trot of the 
horses resumed, and soon dying away in the distance. 
That same night, the two faint, hungry, weary travelers, 
foot-sore and exhausted, came stumbling into Rheims, 
looking about for some person still awake, to tell them the 
way to the house of the priest Paul, a friend of Attalus's 
uncle. They found it just as the church-bell was ringing 
for matins, a sound that must have seemed very like home 
to these members of an episcopal household. They 
knocked, and in the morning twilight met the priest go- 
ing to his earliest Sunday-morning service. Leo told his 
young master's name, and how they had escaped, and the 
priest's first exclamation was a strange one : " My dream 
is true ! This very night I saw two doves, one white 
and one black, who came and perched on my hand." 

13. The good man Avas overjoyed, but he scrupled to 
give them any food, as it was contrary to the Church's 
rules for the fast to be broken before mass ; but the trav- 
elers were half-dead with hunger, and could only say, 
" The good Lord pardon us, for, saving the respect due to 
his day, we must eat something, since this is the fourth 
day since we have touched bread or meat." The priest, 
upon this, gave them some bread and wine, and after hid- 
ing them carefully, went to church, hoping to avert sus- 
picion. But their master was already at Rheims, making 
strict search for them, and learning that Paul the priest 
was a friend of the Bishop of Langres, he went to the 
church, and there questioned him closely. But the priest 



178 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

succeeded in guarding his secret, and though he incurred 
much danger — as the Salic law is verj severe against 
concealers of runaway slaves — he kept Attains and Leo 
for two days, till the search was over, and their strength 
restored, so that they could proceed to Langres. There 
they were welcomed like men risen from the dead ; the 
bishop wept on the neck of Attains, and was ready to re- 
ceive Leo as a slave no more, but a friend and deliverer. 

14. A few days after, Leo was solemnly led to the 
church. Every door was set open as a sign that he might 
henceforth go whithersoever he would. Bishop Gregorius 
took him by the hand, and, standing, before the arch- 
deacon, declared that for the sake of the good services 
rendered by his slave Leo, he set him free, and created 
him a Eoman citizen. Then the archbishop read a writ- 
ing of manumission. " Whatever is done according to the 
Roman law is irrevocable. According to the constitution 
of the Emperor Constantine, of happy memory, and the 
edict that declares that whosoever is manumitted in 
church, in the presence of the bishops, priests, and dea- 
cons, shall become a Roman citizen under protection of 
the Church ; from this day Leo becomes a member of the 
city, free to go and come where he will, as if he had 
been born of free parents. From this day forward he is 
exempt from all subjection of servitude, of all duty of a 
freedman, all bond of clientship. He is and shall be 
free, with full and entire freedom, and shall never cease 
to belong to the body of Roman citizens." 

15. At the same time Leo was endowed with lands, 
which raised him to the rank of what the Franks called 
a Roman proprietor, the highest reward in the bishop's 
power, for the faithful devotion that had incurred such 
dangers in order to rescue the young Attains from his 

miserable bondage. Charlotte M. Yonge. 



MEDIEVAL RECORD. 179 

XXXY-THE MOORS IJV SPAIJY. 

1. Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in 
Spain before thej commenced a brilliant career. Adopt- 
ing what had now become the established policy of the 
commanders of the Faithful in Asia, the caliphs of Cor- 
dova distinguislied themselves as patrons of learning, and 
set an example of refinement strongly contrasting with 
the condition of the native European j)rinces. Cordova, 
under their administration, at its highest point of pros- 
perity, boasted of more than two hundred thousand houses, 
and more than a million inhabitants. After sunset a 
man might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles 
by the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years 
after this time there was not so much as one public lamp 
in London. Its streets were solidly paved. In Paris, 
centuries subsequently, who ever stepped over his thresh- 
old on a rainy day stepped up to his ankles in mud. 

2. Other cities, as Granada, Seville, Toledo, considered 
themselves rivals of Cordova. The palaces of the caliphs 
were magnificently decorated. Those sovereigns might 
well look down with supercilious contempt on the dwell- 
ings of the rulers of Germany, France, and England, 
which were scarcely better than stables — chimneyless, 
windowless, and with a hole in the roof for the smoke to 
escape, like the wigwams of certain Indians. 

3. The Spanish Mohammedans had brought with 
them all the luxuries and prodigalities of Asia. Their 
residences stood forth against the clear blue sky, or were 
embosomed in woods. They had polished marble balco- 
nies, overhanging orange-gardens, courts with cascades of 
water, shady retreats provocative of slumber in the heat 
of the day, retiring-rooms, vaulted with stained glass, 
speckled with gold, over which streams of water were 



180 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

made to gush; the floors and walls were of exquisite 
mosaic. Here a fountain of quicksilver shot up in a glis- 
tening spray, the glittering particles falling with a tranquil 
sound like fairy bells ; there, apartments into which cool 
air was drawn from flower-gardens, in summer, by means 
of ventilating towers, and in the winter through earthen 
pipes, or caleducts, imbedded in the walls — the hypocaust, 
in the vaults below, breathing forth volumes of warm and 
perfumed air through these hidden passages. 

4. The walls were not covered with wainscot, but 
adorned with arabesques and paintings of agricultural 
scenes and views of paradise. From the ceilings, cor- 
niced with fretted gold, great chandeliers hung, one of 
which, it is said, was so large that it contained one thou- 
sand and eighty-four lamps. Clusters of frail marble col- 
umns surprised the beholder with the vast weights they 
bore. In the boudoirs of the sultanas they were some- 
times of verd-antique, and incrusted with lapis - lazuli. 
The furniture was of sandal and citron wood inlaid with 
mother-of-pearl, ivory, silver, or relieved with gold and 
precious malachite. In orderly confusion were arranged 
vases of rock-crystal, Chinese porcelain, and tables of ex- 
quisite mosaic. The winter apartments were hung with 
rich tapestry ; the floors were covered with embroidered 
Persian carpets. Pillows and couches of elegant forms 
were scattered about the rooms, which were perfumed 
with frankincense. 

5. It was the intention of the Saracen architect, by 
excluding the view of the external landscape, to concen- 
trate attention on his work, and since the representation 
of the human form was religiously forbidden, and that 
source of decoration denied, his imagination ran riot with 
the complicated arabesques he introduced, and sought 
every opportunity of replacing the prohibited work of art 



MEDIyEVAL RECORD. 181 

by the trophies and rarities of the garden. For this rea- 
son the Arabs never produced artists ; religion turned 
them from the beautiful, and made them soldiers, philoso- 
phers, and men of affairs. Splendid flowers and rare 
exotics ornamented the court-yards and even the inner 
chambers. 

6. Great care was taken to make due provision for the 
cleanliness, occupation, and amusement of the inmates. 
Through pipes of metal, water, both warm and cold, to 
suit the season of the year, ran into baths of marble ; in 
niches, where the current of air could be artificially 
directed, hung dripping alcarazzas. There were whisper- 
ing-galleries for the amusement of the women ; labyrinths 
and marble play-courts for the children ; for the master 
himself, grand hbraries. The Caliph Alhakem's was so 
large that the catalogue alone fllled forty volumes. He 
had also apartments for the transcribing, binding, and 
ornamenting of books. A taste for caligraphy and the 
possession of splendidly illuminated manuscripts seems to 
have anticipated in the caliphs, both of Asia and Spain, 
the taste for statuary and painting among the later popes 
of Eome. 

7. Such were the palace and gardens of Zehra, in which 
Abderrahman III honored his favorite sultana. The edi- 
fice had twelve hundred columns of Greek, Italian, Span- 
ish, and African marble. The body-guard of the sover- 
eign was composed of twelve thousand horsemen, whose 
cimeters and belts were studded with gold. This was 
that Abderrahman who, after a glorious reign of fifty 
years, sat down to count the number of days of unalloyed 
happiness he had experienced, and could only enumerate 
fourteen. " O man ! " exclaimed the plaintive calij^h, 
" put not your trust in this present world." 

8. No nation has ever excelled the Spanish Arabs in 



182 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 

the beauty and costliness of their pleasure-gardens. To 
them also we owe the introduction of very many of our 
most valuable cultivated fruits, such as the peach. Re- 
taining the love of their ancestors for the cooling effect 
of water in a hot climate, they spared no pains in the 
superfluity of fountains, hydraulic works, and artificial 
lakes in which fish were raised for the table. Into such 
a lake, attaclied to the palace of Cordova, many loaves 
were cast each day to feed the fish. 

0. There were also menageries of foreign animals, 
aviaries of rare birds, manufactories in which skilled work- 
men, obtained from foreign countries, displayed their art 
in textures of silk, cotton, linen, and all the miracles of 
the loom ; in jewelry and filigree-work, with which tbey 
ministered to the female pride. Under the shade of cy- 
presses cascades disappeared ; among flowering shrubs 
there were winding walks, bowers of roses, seats cut 
out of rock, and cryj3t-like grottoes hewn in the living 
stone. E^owhere was ornamental gardening better under- 
stood ; for not only did the artist try to please the eye as 
it wandered over the pleasant gradation of vegetable 
color and form — he also boasted his success in the grati- 
fication of the sense of smell by the studied succession of 
perfumes from beds of flowers. 

10. In the midst of all this luxury, which can not be 
regarded by the historian with disdain, since in the end it 
produced a most important result in the south of France, 
the Spanish caliphs, emulating the example of their Asiatic 
compeers, were not only the patrons but the personal cul- 
tivators of human learning. One of them was himself 
the author of a work on polite literature in not less than 
fifty volumes ; another wrote a treatise on algebra. When 
Taryak, the musician, came from the East to Spain, the 
Caliph Abderrahman rode forth to meet him with honor. 



MEDIEVAL RECORD, 183 

The College of Music in Cordova was sustained by ample 

government patronage, and is said to have produced many 

illustrious professors. 

John W. Draper. 



XXXVI -CHARLEMAOJfE. 

1. We come now to one of the greatest men of all 
times, Charles the Great, son of Pepin the Short, a man 
who has left his mark on history for all time. Charles 
(called by the French Charlemagne) was great in many 
ways, whereas most great men are great in one or two. 
He was a great warrior, a great political genius, an ener- 
getic legislator, a lover of learning, and a lover also of his 
natural language and poetry at a time when it was the 
fashion to despise them. And he united and displayed 
all these merits in a time of general and monotonous bar- 
barism, when, save in the church, the minds of men were 
dull and barren. 

2. From 769 to 813, in Germany and Western and 
E'orthern Europe, Charlemagne conducted thirty-two 
campaigns against the Saxons, Frisians, Bavarians, Avars, 
Slavs, and Danes ; in Italy, ^lvq against the Lombards ; in 
Spain, Corsica, and Sardinia, twelve against the Arabs, 
two against the Greeks, and three in Gaul itself, against 
the Aquitanians and Bretons — in all, fifty-three expedi- 
tions in forty-five years, among which those he undertook 
against the Saxons, the Lombards, and the Arabs were 
long and difficult wars. 

3. The kingdom of Charles was vast; it comprised 
nearly all Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and 
the north of Italy and of Spain. He had, in ruling this 



184: STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

mighty realm, to deal with dj-fferent nations, without co- 
hesion, and to grapple with their various institutions and 
bring them into system. 

4. The first great undertaking of Charles was against 
the Saxons. They were still heathen, and were a constant 
source of annoyance to the Franks, for they made frequent 
inroads to pillage and destroy their towns and harvests. 

5. In the line of mountains which forms the step 
from lower into upper Germany, above the "Westphalian 
plains, is one point at which the river Weser breaks 
through and flows down into the level land about three 
miles above the town of Minden. This rent in the mount- 
ain is called the Westphalian Gate. The hills stand on 
each side like red sandstone door-posts, and one is crowned 
by some crumbling fragments of a castle ; it is called the 
Wittekindsberg, and takes its name from Wittekind, a 
Saxon king, who had his castle there. Wittekind was a 
stubborn heathen, and a very determined man. 

6. In 772 Charles convoked a great assembly at 
Worms, at which it was unanimously resolved to march 
against the Saxons and chastise them for their incursions. 
Charles advanced along the Weser, through the gate, de- 
stroyed Wittekind's castle, pushed on to Paderborn, w^here 
he threw down an idol adored by the Saxons, and then 
was obliged to return and hurry to Italy to fight the Lom- 
bards, who had revolted. Next year he invaded Saxony 
again. He built himself a palace at Paderborn, and sum- 
moned the Saxon chiefs to come and do homage. Witte- 
kind alone refused, and fled to Denmark. 

7. No sooner had Charles gone to fight the Moors in 
Spain than Wittekind returned, and the Saxons rose at 
his summons, and, bursting into Franconia, devastated the 
land up to the walls of Cologne. Charles returned and 
fought them in two great battles, defeated them, erected 



MBDI^VAL RECORD. 



185 




Charlcmacjnc. 



186 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

fortresses in their midst, and carried off hostages. Affairs 
seemed to prosper, and Charles deemed himself as securely 
master of Saxony as Yarns had formerly in the same 
country, and under precisely the same circumstances. 
Charles then quitted the country, leaving orders for a 
body of Saxons to join his Franks and march together 
against the Slavs. The Saxons obeyed the call with alac- 
rity, and soon outnumbered the Franks. One day, as the 
army was crossing the mountains from the Weser, at a 
given signal the Saxons fell on their companions and 
butchered them. 

8. When the news of this disaster reached Charles he 
resolved to teach the Saxons a terrible lesson. Crossing 
the Rhine, he laid waste their country with lire and sword, 
and forced the Saxons to submit to be baptized and ac- 
cept Christian teachers. Those who refused he killed. 
At Yerdun he had over four thousand of the rebels 
beheaded. At Detmold, Wittekind led the Saxons 
in a furious battle, in which neither gained the victory. 
In another battle, on the Hase, they were completely 
routed. 

9. Then Wittekind submitted, came into the camp of 
Charles, and asked to be baptized. A little ruined chapel 
stands on the Wittekind sberg, above the Westphalian 
Gate, and there, according to tradition, near the over- 
turned walls of his own castle, the stubborn heathen 
bowed the neck to receive the yoke of Christ. Charles's 
two nephews, the sons of Karlomann, were with Deside- 
rius, the Lombard king, and Desiderius tried to force the 
Pope to anoint them kings of the Franks, to head a re- 
volt against Charles. When the great king heard this he 
came over the Alps into Italy, dethroned Desiderius, and 
shut him up in a monastery. Then he crowned himself 
with the iron crown of the Lombard kings, which was 



MEDIEVAL RECORD, 187 

said to have been made out of one of the nails that 
fastened Christ to the cross. 

10. Duke Thassils of Bavaria had married a daughter 
of Desiderius, and he refused to acknowledge the author- 
ity of Charles. He also stirred up the Avars who lived 
in Hungary to invade the Frankish realm. Charles 
marched against Thassils, drove him out of Bavaria, sub- 
dued the Avars, and converted the country between the 
Ems and Raab — that is, Austria proper — into a province, 
which was called the East March, and formed the begin- 
ning of the East Realm (Oesterreich), or Austria. Charles 
also fought the Danes, and took from them the country 
up to the river Eider. 

11. When we consider what continuous lighting 
Charles had, it is a wonder to us that he had time to gov- 
ern and make laws ; but he devoted as much thought to 
arranging his realm and placing it under proper governors 
as he did to extending its frontiers. 

12. Charles constituted the various parts of his vast 
empire — kingdoms, duchies, and counties. He was him- 
self the sovereign of all these united, but he managed 
them through counts and vice-counts. The frontier dis- 
tricts were called marches, and were under march-counts, 
or margraves. Count is not a German title ; the German 
equivalent is Graf, and the English is earl. The counties 
were divided into hundreds ; a hundred villages went to 
a vice-count. He had also counts of the palace, who ruled 
over the crown estates, and send-counts {missi)^ whom he 
sent out yearly through the country to see that his other 
counts did justice, and did not oppress the people. If 
people felt themselves wronged by the counts, they ap- 
pealed to these send-counts ; and if the send-counts did not 
do them justice, they appealed to the palatine-counts. 

13. Every year Charles summoned his counts four 



188 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

. times, when lie could, but always once, in May, to meet 
him in council, and discuss the grievances of the people. 
As the great dukes were troublesome, because so power- 
ful, Charles tried to do without them, and to keep them 
in check. He gave whole principalities to bishops, hop- 
ing that they would become supporters of him and the 
crown against the powerful dukes. 

14. He was also very careful for the good government 
of the Church. He endowed a number of monasteries to 
serve as schools for boj^s and girls. He had also a collec- 
tion of good, wholesome sermons made in German, and 
sent copies about in all directions, requiring them to be 
read to the people in church. He invited singers and 
musicians from Italy to come and improve the perform- 
ance of divine worship, and two song-schools were estab- 
lished, one at Gall, another at Metz. His Franks, he com- 
plained, had not much aptitude for music ; their singing 
was like the howling of wild beasts or the noise made by 
the squeaking, groaning wheels of a baggage-wagon over 
a stony road ! 

15. Charles was particularly interested in schools, and 
delighted in going into them and listening to the boys at 
their lessons. One day when he had paid such a visit he 
was told that the noblemen's sons were much idler than 
those of the common citizens. Then the great king grew 
red in the face and frowned, and his eyes flashed. He 
called the young nobles before him and said in thunder- 
ing tones : " You grand gentlemen ! You young puppets ! 
You puff yourselves up with the thoughts of your rank 
and wealth, and suppose you have no need of letters ! I 
tell you that your pretty faces and your high nobility are 
accounted nothing by me. Beware ! beware ! Without 
diligence and conscientiousness not one of you gets any- 
thing from me." 



MEDIAEVAL RECORD. 189 

16. Charles dearly loved the grand old German poems 
of the heroes, and he had them collected and copied out. 
Alas ! they have been lost. His stupid son, thinking them 
rubbish, burned them all. The great king also sent to 
Italy for builders, and set them to work to erect palaces 
and churches. His favorite palaces were at Aix and at 
Ingelheim. At the latter place he had a bridge built over 
the Rhine. At Aix he built the cathedral with pillars 
taken from Roman ruins. It was quite circular, with a 
colonnade going round it ; inside it remains almost un- 
altered to the present day. 

IT. He was very eager to promote trade, and so far in 
advance of the times was he that he resolved to cut a 
canal so as to connect the Main with the Regnitz, and 
thus make a water-way right across Germany from the 
Rhine to the Danube, and so connect the German Ocean 
with the Black Sea. The canal was begun, but wars in- 
terfered with its completion, and the work was not carried 
out till the present century by Louis I of Bavaria. 

18. Charles was a tall, grand-looking man, nearly seven 
feet high. He was so strong that he could take a horse- 
shoe in his hands and snap it. He ate and drank in 
moderation, and was grave and dignified in his conduct. 

19. In the year 800, an insurrection broke out in Rome 
against Pope Leo III. While he was riding in procession 
his enemies fell on him, threw him from his horse, and an 
awkward attempt was made to put out his eyes and cut 
out his tongue. Thus, bleeding and insensible, he was 
put into a monastery. The Duke of Spoleto, a Frank, 
hearing of this, marched to Rome and removed the 
wounded Pope to Spoleto, where he was well nursed and 
recovered his eye-sight and power of speech. Charles was 
very indignant when he heard of the outrage, and he left 
the Saxons, whom he was fighting, and came to Italy to 



190 8T0EIE8 OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

investigate the circumstance. He assumed the office of 
judge, and the guilty persons were sent to prison in 
France. 

20. Then came Christmas-daj, the Christmas of the 
last year in the eighth century of Christ. Charles and all 
his sumptuous court, the nobles and people of Rome, the 
whole clergy of Rome, were present at the high services 
of the birth of Christ. The Pope himself chanted the 
mass ; the full assembly were rapt in profound devotion. 
At the close the Pope rose, advanced toward Charles with 
a splendid crown in his hands, placed it upon his brow, 
and proclaimed him Caesar Augustus. " God grant life 
and victory to the great emperor ! " His words were lost 
in the acclamations of the soldiery, the people, and the 
clergy. 

21. Charles was taken completely by surprise. What 
the consequences would be to Germany and to the papacy, 
how fatal to both, neither he nor Leo could see. So 
Charlemagne became King of Italy and Emperor of the 
West — the successor of the Caesars of Rome. 

22. When Charles felt that his end was approaching, 
he summoned all his nobles to Aix into the church he had 
there erected. There, on the altar, lay a golden crown. 
Charles made his son Ludwig, or Louis, stand before him, 
and, in the audience of his great men, gave him his last 
exhortation : to fear God and to love his people as his 
own children, to do right and to execute justice, and to 
walk in integrity before God and man. With streaming 
eyes Louis promised to fulfill his father's command. 
" Then," said Charles, '' take this crown, and place it on 
your own head, and never forget the promise you have 
made this day." 

Sabine^ Baring-Gould. " The Story of Germany.'''' 

Putnarn's " Stories of the Nations " Series. 



WESTERN RECOED. 



XXXVII-THE J^OBSEMFK. 

1. The Gnlf Stream flows so near to the southern coast 
of l^orway, and to tlie Orkneys and "Western Islands, that 
their climate is much less severe than might be supposed. 
Yet no one can help wondering why they were formerly 
so mnch more populous than now, and why the people 
who came westward even so long ago as the great Aryan 
migration, did not persist in turning aside to the more 
fertile countries that lay farther southward. In spite of 
all their disadvantages, the Scandinavian peninsula, and 
the sterile islands of the northern seas, were inhabitated 
by men and women whose enterprise and intelligence 
ranked tliem above their neighbors. 

2. Now, with the modern ease of travel and transpor- 
tation, these poorer countries can be supplied from other 
parts of the world. And though the summers of Nor- 
way are misty and dark and short, and it is difficult to 
raise even a little hay on the bits of meadow among the 
rocky mountain-slopes, commerce can make up for all de- 
ficiencies. In early times there was no commerce, except 
that carried on by the pirates, if we may dignify their 
undertakings by such a respectable name, and it was hard- 



192 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

ly possible to make a living from the soil alone. But it 
does not take lis long to discover that the ancient North- 
men were not farmers, but hunters and iishermen. It 
had grown more and more difficult to find food along the 
rivers and broad grassy wastes of inland Europe, and 
pushing westward they had at last reached the place where 
they could live beside waters that swarmed with fish and 
among hills that sheltered plenty of game. 

3. The tribes that settled in the north grew in time 
to have many peculiarities of their own, and as their 
countries grew more and more populous, they needed 
more things that could not easily be had, and a fashion 
of plundering their neighbors began to prevail. Men 
were still more or less beasts of prey. Invaders must be 
kept out, and at last much of the industry of Scandinavia 
was connected with the carrying on of an almost univer- 
sal fighting and marauding. Ships must be built, and 
there must be endless supph'es of armor and weapons. 
Stones were easily collected for missiles or made fit for 
arrows and spear-heads, and metals were worked with 
great care. 

4. In JS'orway and Sweden were the best places to 
find all these, and if the Northmen planned to fight a 
great battle, they had to transport a huge quantity of 
stones, iron, and bronze. It is easy to see v/hy one day's 
battle was almost always decisive in ancient times, for 
suppHes could not be quickly forwarded from point to 
point, and after the arrows were all shot and the con- 
quered wei-e chased off the field, they had no further 
means of offense except a hand-to-hand fight with those 
who had won the right to pick up the fallen spears at 
their leisure. So, too, an unexpected invasion was likely 
to prove successful ; it was a work of time to get ready 
for a battle, and when the Northmen swooped down upon 



WESTERN RECORD. 193 

some shore town of Britain or Gaiil, the unlucky citizens 
were at their mercj. And while the Northmen had Ush 
and game, and were mighty hunters, and their rocks and 
mines helped forward their warlike enterprises, so the 
forests supplied them with ship-timber, and they gained 
renown as sailors wherever their fame extended. 

5. There was a great difference, however, between the 
manner of life in Norway and that of England and 
France. Tlie Norwegian stone, however useful for ar- 
row-heads or axes, was not lit for building purposes. 
There is hardly any clay there, either, to make bricks 
with, so that wood has usually been the only material for 
houses. In the southern countries there had always been 
rude castles in which the people could shelter themselves, 
but the Northmen could build no castles that a torch 
could not destroy. They trusted much more to their 
ships than to their houses, and some of their captains dis- 
dained to live on shore at all. 

6. There is something refreshing in the stories of old 
Norse life ; of its simplicity and freedom and childish 
zest. An old writer says that they had " a hankering 
after pomp and pageantry," and by means of this they 
came at last to doing things decently and in order, and to 
setting the fashions for the rest of Europe. There was 
considera1)le dignity in the manner of every-day life and 
housekeeping. Their houses were often very large, even 
two hundred feet long, with flaring fires on a pavement 
in the middle of the floor, and the beds built next the 
walls on three sides, sometimes hidden by wide tapestries 
or foreign cloth that had been brought home in the viking 
ships. In front of the beds were benches where each 
man had his seat and footstool, with his armor and weap- 
ons hung high on the wall above. 

7. The master of the house had a high seat on the 



194 STORIES OF THE OLBEN TIME. 

north side in the middle of a long bench ; opposite was 
another bench for guests and strangers, while the women 
sat on tlie third side. The roof was high ; there were a 
few windows in it, and those were covered by skins, and 
let in but little light. The smoke escaped through open- 
ings in the carved, soot-blackened roof ; and though in 
later times the rich men's houses were more like villages, 
because they made groups of smaller buildings for store- 
houses, for guest-rooms, or for work-shops all around 
still, the idea of this primitive great hall or living-room 
has not even yet been lost. The latest copies of it in 
England and France that still remain are most interest- 
ing; but what a hne sight it must have been at night 
when the ffreat lires blazed and the warriors sat on their 
benches in solemn order, and the skalds recited their long 
sagas, of the host's own bravery or the valiant deeds of 
his ancestors ! Hospitality was almost chief among the 
virtues. 

8. We must read what was written in their own lan- 
guage, and then we shall have more respect for the vikings 
and sea-kings, always distinguishing between these two ; 
for, while any peasant who wished could be a viking — a 
sea-robber — a sea-king was a king indeed, and must be 
connected with the royal race of the country. He re- 
ceived the title of king by right as soon as he took com- 
mand of a ship's crew, though he need not have any land 
or kingdom. Yikings were merely pirates ; they might 
be peasants and vikings by turn, and won their names 
from the inlets, the viks or wicks, where they harbored 
their ships. A sea-king must be a viking, but naturally 
very few of the vikings were sea-kings. 

9. The viking had rights in his own country, and 
knew what it was to enjoy those rights ; if he could win 
more land, he would know how to govern it, and he knew 



WESTERN RECORD. 



195 




A Vihing''s Home. 



196 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

what he was fighting for, and meant to win. If we won- 
der why all this energy was spent on the high seas and 
in strange countries, there are two answers : first, that 
fighting was the natural employment of the men, and 
that no right could be held that could not be defended ; 
but besides this, one form of their energy was showing 
itself at home in rude attempts at literature. 

10. The more that we know of the I^orthmen, the 
more we are convinced how superior they were in their 
knowledge of the useful arts to the people wiiom they 
conquered. There is a legend that, when Charlemagne, 
in the ninth century, saw some pirate ships cruising in the 
Mediterranean, along the shores of which they had at last 
found their way, he covered his face and burst into tears. 
He was not so much afraid of their cruelty and barbarity 
as of their civihzation. l!^obody knew better that none 
of the Christian countries under his rule had ships or 
men that could make such a daring voyage. He knew 
that they were skillful workers in wood and iron, and 
had learned to be rope-makers and weavers ; that they 
could make casks for their supply of drinking-water, and 
understood how to prepare food for their long cruises. 
All their swords and spears and bow-strings had to be 
made and kept in good condition, and sheltered from the 
sea-spray. 

11. When we picture the famous sea-kings' ships to 
ourselves, we do not wonder that the Northmen were so 
proud of them, or that the skalds were never tired of re- 
counting their glories. There were two kinds of vessels : 
the last-ships, that carried cargoes, and the long-ships, or 
ships of war. Listen to the splendors of the " Long Ser- 
pent," which was the largest ship ever built in Norway. 
A dragon-ship, to begin with, because all the long-ships 
had a dragon for a figure-head, except the smallest of 



WESTERN RECORD. 197 

them, which were called cutters, and only carried ten 
or tw^enty rowers on a side. The " Long Serpent " had 
thirty-four rowers' benches on a side, and she was one 
hundred and eleven feet long. Over the sides were hung 
the shining red and white shields of the vikings, the gild- 
ed dragon's head towered high at the prow, and at the 
stern a gilded tail went curling off over the head of the 
steersman. Then, from the long body, the heavy oars 
swept forward and back through the w^ater, and as it 
came down the fiord, tlie " Long Serpent" must have 
looked like some enormous centipede creeping out of its 
den on an awful errand, and heading out across the rough 
water toward its prey. 

12. The voyages were often disastrous in spite of 
much clever seamanship. They knew nothing of the 
mariner's compass, and found their way chiefly by the 
aid of the stars — inconstant pilots enough on such foggy, 
stormy seas. They carried birds, too, oftenest ravens, 
and used to let them loose and follow them toward the 
nearest land. The black raven w^as the vikings' favorite 
symbol for their flags, and familiar enough it became in 
other harbors than their own. They were bold, hardy 
fellows, and held fast to a rude code of honor and rank 
of knighthood. 

13. The valleys of the Elbe and the Khine, of the 
Seine and the Loire, made a famous hunting-ground for 
the dragon-ships to seek. 

14. The people wdio lived in France were of another 
sort, but they often knew how to defend themselves as 
well as the l^orthmen knew how to attack. There are 
few early French records for us to read, for the literature 
of that early day was almost wholly destroyed in the re- 
ligious houses and public buildings of France. Here and 
there a few pages of a poem or of a biography or chroni- 



198 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

cle have been kept, but from this very fact we can under- 
stand the miserable condition of the country. 

15. The whole second half of the ninth century is 
taken up with the histories of these invasions. We must 
follow for a while the progress of events in Gaul, or 
France as we call it now, though it was made up then of 
a number of smaller kingdoms. The result of the great 
siege of Paris was only a settling of affairs with the 
Northmen for the time being ; one part of the country 
was delivered from them at the expense of another. 

16. They could be bought off and bribed for a time, 
but there was never to be any such thing as their going 
back to their own country and letting France alone for 
good and all. But as they gained at length whole tracts 
of country, instead of the little w^ealth of a few men to 
take away in their ships as at first, they began to settle 
down in their new lands and to become conquerors and 
colonists instead of mere plunderers. Instead of continu- 
ally ravaging and attacking the kingdoms, they slowly 
became the owners and occupiers of the conquered terri- 
tory ; they pushed their way from point to point. 

17. At first, as you Jiave seen already they trusted to 
their ships, and always left their wives and children at 
home in the north countries, but as time went on, they 
brought their families with them and made new homes, 
for which they would have to fight many a battle yet. 
It would be no wonder if the women had become pos- 
sessed by a love of adventure, too, and had insisted upon 
seeing the lands from which the rich booty was brought 
to them, and that they had been saying for a long tinie : 
" Show us the places where the grapes grow and the fruit- 
trees bloom, where men build great houses and live in 
them splendidly. We are tired of seeing only the long 
larchen beams of their high roofs, and the purple and 



WESTERN RECORD. 199 

red and gold cloths, and the red wine and yellow wheat that 
you bring away. Why should we not go to live in that 
country, instead of your breaking it to pieces, and going 
there so many of you, every year, only to be slain as its 
enemies i "We are tired of our sterile ^N'orway and our 
great Danish deserts of sand, of our cold winds and wet 
weather, and our long winters that pass by so slowly while 
the fleets are gone. We would rather see Seville and 
Paris themselves, than only their gold and merchandise 
and the rafters of their churches that you bring home for 
ship timbers." 

IS. The kingdoms of France had been divided and 
subdivided, and, while we find a great many fine exam- 
ples of resistance, and some great victories over the 
JS^orthmen, they were not pushed out and checked alto- 
gether. Instead, they gradually changed into Frenchmen 
themselves, different from other Frenchmen only in being 
more spirited, vigorous and alert. They inspired every 
new growth of the religion, language, or manners, with 
their own splendid vitality. They w^ere like plants that 
have grown in dry, thin soil, transplanted to a richer spot 
of ground, and sending out fresh shoots in the doubled 
moisture and sunshine. And presently we shall find the 
Northman becoming the Norman of history. As the 
Northman, almost the first thing we admire about him is 
his character, his glorious energy ; as the Norman, we see 
that energy turned into better channels, and bringing a 
new element into the progress of civilization. 

Sarah 0. Jewett. " The Story of the Normans^ 

Putnam'' s '-'■Stories of the Nations'''' Series. 



200 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

XXXVIIL-ROLF THE GAJYGER. 

1. The ninth century was a sad time for both Eng- 
land and France. The Gothic tribes, in their march to 
the west had reached the sea in Denmark and Norway, 
and had increased to such an extent as to take up all the 
land tit for cultivation. The strength and courage which 
they had shown in many a battle-held on the land was 
now transferred to the sea, soldiers and knights becom- 
ing vikings and pirates. Fierce worshipers were they of 
the old gods Odin, Frey, and Thor. They plundered, they 
burned, they slew ; they especially devastated churches and 
monasteries, and no coast was safe from them from the 
Adriatic to the farthest north — even Rome saw their long- 
ships, and, " From the fnry of the Northmen, good Lord 
dehver us ! " was the prayer in every litany of the West. 

2. England had been well-nigh undone by them, when 
the spirit of her greatest king awoke, and by Alfred they 
were overcome. Some were permitted to settle down, and 
were taught Christianity and civilization, and the fresh 
invaders were driven from the coast. Alfred's gallant 
son and grandson held the same course, guarded their 
coasts, and made their faith and themselves respected 
throughout the North. But in France, the much harassed 
house of Charles the Great, and the ill-compacted bond of 
different nations, were little able to oppose their fierce 
assaults, and ravage and devastation reigned from one end 
of the countrj^ to another. 

3. However, the vikings, on returning to their native 
homes sometimes found their place filled up, and the fam- 
ily inheritance incapable of supporting so many. Thus 
they began to think of winning not merely gold and cattle, 
but lands and houses, on the coasts they pillaged. In 
Scotland, the Hebrides, and Ireland, they settled by leave 



WESTERN RECORD. 201 

of nothing bat their swords ; in England, by treaty with 
Alfred ; and in France, half by conquest, half by treaty, 
always, however, accepting Christianity as a needful obli- 
gation when they took posession of southern lands. Prob- 
ably they thought Thor was only the god of the north, 
and that the "White Christ," as they called Him who 
was made known to them in these new countries was to 
be adored in what they deemed alone his territories. 

4. Of all the sea-robbers who sailed from their rocky 
dwelling-places by the fiords of JN'orway, none enjoyed 
higher renown than Rolf, called the ganger, or w^alker, 
as tradition relates, because his stature was so gigantic 
that, when clad in full armor, no horse could support his 
weight, and he therefore always fought on foot. 

5. Rolfs lot had, however, fallen in what he doubt- 
less considered as evil days. No such burnings and plun- 
derings as had hitherto wasted England and enriched 
Norway, fell to his share ; for Alfred had made the 
bravest Northman feel that his fleet and army wei-e more 
than a match for theirs. Ireland was exhausted by the 
former depredations of the pirates, and, from a fertile 
and flourishing country had become a scene of desolation. 
Scotland and its isles were too barren to afford prey to 
the spoiler. 

6. Rolf, presuming on the favor shown to his family 
while returning from an expedition on the Baltic, made 
a descent on the coast of Yiken, a part of Norway, and 
carried off the cattle wanted by his crew. The king, who 
happened at that time to be in that district, was high- 
ly displeased, and, assembling a council, declared Rolf 
the Ganger an outlaw. 

7. The banished Rolf found a great number of com- 
panions, who, like himself, were unw^illing to submit to 
the strict rule of Harald, and setting sail with them, he 



202 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

first plundered and devastated the coast of Flanders, and 
afterward returned to France. In the spring of 896 the 
citizens of Rouen, scarcely yet recovered from the mis- 
eries inflicted upon them by the fierce Danish rover Hast- 
ing, were dismayed by the sight of a fleet of long, low 
vessels, with spreading sails, heads carved hke that of a 
serpent, and sterns finished like the tail of a reptile, such 
as they well knew to be the keels of the dreaded North- 
men, the harbingers of destruction and desolation. Little 
hope of succor or protection was there from King Charles 
the Simple ; and, indeed, had the sovereign been ever so 
warlike and energetic, it would little have availed Rouen, 
which might have been destroyed twice over before a 
messenger could reach Laon. 

8. In this emergency. Franco, the archbishop, pro- 
posed to go forth to meet the Northmen and attempt to 
make terms for his flock. The offer was gladly accepted 
by the trembling citizens, and the good archbishop went, 
bearing the keys of the town, to visit the camp which 
the Northmen had begun to erect upon the bank of the 
river. They offered him no violence, and he performed 
his errand safely. Rolf, the rude generosity of whose 
character was touched by his fearless conduct, readily 
agreed to spare the lives and property of the citizens, on 
condition that Rouen was surrendered to him without 
resistance. 

9. Entering the town, he there established his head- 
quarters, and spent a whole year in the adjacent parts of 
the country, during which time the Northmen so faith- 
fully observed their promise, that they were regarded by 
the Rouennais rather as friends than as conquerors ; and 
Rolf, or Rollo, as the French called him, was far more 
popular among them than their real sovereign. Wherever 
he met with resistance, he showed, indeed, th*e relentless 



WESTERN RECORD. 203 

crueltj of the heathen pirate ; wherever he found submis- 
sion, he was a kind master. 

10. In the course of the following year, he advanced 
along the banks of the Seine as far as its junction with 
the Eure. On the opposite side of the river there were 
visible a number of tents, where slept a numerous army, 
which Charles had at length collected to oppose this for- 
midable enemy. The Northmen also set up their camp, 
in expectation of a battle, and darkness had just closed in 
on them when a shout was heard on the opposite side of 
the river, and to their surprise a voice was heard speak- 
ing in their own language. " Brave warriors, why come 
ye hither, and what do ye seek 1 " 

11. "We are Northmen, come hither to conquer 
France," replied Rollo. " But who art thou w^ho speak- 
est our tongue so well i " •' Heard ye never of Hasting ? " 
was the reply. " Yes," returned Rollo, " he began well, 
but ended badly." " Will ye not, then," continued the 
old pirate, " submit to my lord the king ? Will ye not 
hold of him lands and honors?" "No," replied the 
Northmen, disdainfully, " we will own no lord, we will 
take no gift, but we will have what we ourselves can con- 
quer by force." 

12. Here Hasting took his departure, and returning 
to the French camp, strongly advised the commander not 
to hazard a battle. His counsel was overruled by a young 
standard-bearer, who, significantly observing, "Wolves 
make not war on w^olves," so offended the old sea-king, 
that he quitted the army that night, and never again ap- 
peared in France, The w^isdom of his advice was the 
next morning made evident, by the total defeat of the 
French, and the advance of the Northmen, w^ho in a short 
space after appeared beneath the walls of Paris. Failing 
in their attempt to take the city, they returned to Rouen, 



204 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

where they fortilied themselves, making it the capital of 
the territory they had conquered. 

13. Fifteen years passed away, the summers of which 
were spent in ravaging the dominions of Charles the Sim- 
ple, and the winters in the city of Rouen, and in the 
meantime a change had come over the leader. He had 
been insensibly softened and civilized by his intercourse 
with the good Archbishop Franco, and finding, perhaps, 
that it was not quite so easy as he had expected to con- 
quer the whole kingdom of France, he declared himself 
willing to follow the example which he once despised, and 
to become a vassal of the French crown for the duchy of 
Neustria. 

14. Charles, greatly rejoiced to find himseK thus able 
to put a stop to the dreadful devastations of the North- 
men, readily agreed to the terms proposed by Rollo, ap- 
pointing the village of St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the borders 
of Neustria, as the place of meeting for the purpose of 
receiving his homage and oath of fealty. 

15. The greatest difficulty to be overcome in this con- 
ference was the repugnance felt by the proud Northman 
to perform the customary act of homage before any living 
man, especially one whom he held so cheap as Charles 
the Simple. He consented, indeed, to swear allegiance, 
and declare himself the ''king's man," with his hands 
clasped between those of Charles. The remaining part 
of the ceremony, the kneeling to kiss the foot of the liege 
lord, he absolutely refused, and was with difficulty per- 
suaded to permit one of his followers to perform it in his 
name. The proxy, as proud as his master, instead of 
kneeling, took the king's foot in his hand, and lifted it 
to his mouth while he stood upright, thus overturning 
both monarch and throne, amid the rude laughter of his 
companions, while the miserable Charles and his courtiers 



WESTERN- RECORD. 205 

felt such a dread of these new vassals that they did not 
dare resent the insult. 

16. On his return to Ronen, Rollo was baptized, and, 
on leaving the cathedral, celebrated his conversion by 
large grants to the different churches and convents of his 
duchy, making a fresh gift on each of the days during 
which he wore the white robes of the newly baptized. 
All of his warriors who chose to follow his example, and 
embrace the Christian faith, received from him grants of 
land, to be held of him on the same terms as those by 
which he held the dukedom from the king. The country 
thus peopled by the IS'^orthmen, gradually assumed the 
name of Normandy. 

IT. Applying themselves with all the ardor of their 
temper to their new way of life, the l^orthmen quickly 
adopted the manners, language, and habits which were 
recommended to them as connected with the holy faith 
which they had just embraced, but without losing their 
own bold and vigorous spirit. Soon the gallant and ac- 
complished Norman knight could scarcely have been rec- 
ognized as the savage sea-robber, while, at the same time, 
he bore as little resemblance to the cruel and voluptuous 
French noble, at once violent and indolent. 

18. There is no doubt, however, that the keen, unso- 
phisticated vigor of Rollo, directed by his new religion 
did great good in Normandy, and that his justice was 
sharp, his discipline impartial, so that of him is told the 
famous old story bestowed upon other just princes, that a 
gold bracelet was left for three years untouched upon a tree 
in a forest. He had been married, as part of the treaty, to 
Gisele, a daughter of King Chai'les the Simple, but he was 
an old grizzly warrior, and neither cared for the other. 
A wife whom he had long before taken, had borne him a 
son, named William, to whom he left his dukedom in 932. 



206 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

XXXIX -THE TRUE STORY OF MACBETH. 

1. In the north of Scotland, where tlie cliffs border- 
ing Moray Firth face the auroral heavens, are two an- 
cient towns, Inverness and Forres, whose names are im- 
mortalized in Shakespeare's great tragedy of Macbeth, 
for it is in their vicinity that most of its scenes are laid. 

2. It is a wild, lonely country, and nmst have been 
wilder and lonelier still eight hundred years ago, when 
from the neighboring Norway coast the black boats of 
the vikings, or E^orth Sea rovers, used to come flocking 
into the quiet harbors of Moray and Cromarty Firths, 
like so many swift birds of prey swooping suddenly in 
from the gray horizon, snatching their plunder and flit- 
ting away on never-resting wings only to return in greater 
numbers and depart with richer booty. 

3. In 1033-1039, when the sons of Canute the Dane 
were wearing the English crown, and not long after a few 
of the roving Norsemen had drifted away to plant a little 
history and a great mystery across the wide Atlantic, there 
reigned in Scotland a king by the name of Dnncan Mac- 
Crinan. Among his nobles was a certain Macbeth, Thane 
of Glamis, about whom a great many stories are told, 
some of w^hich w^ould no doubt have made their subject 
open his eyes, for if we may credit the sober historians 
he was rather respectable than otherwise, and probably 
slept much better o' nights than Mr. Shakespeare would 
have us believe. It is even said that he made a pilgrim- 
age to Rome and saw the Pope, which certainly ought to 
establish his virtue to anybody's satisfaction. 

4. At all events he w\is a brave soldier and able gen- 
eral, and Duncan naturally thought that he had the right 
man in the right place when he gave him command of 
the royal army and sent him off to drive out Thorflnn 



WESTERN^ RECORD. 207 

and Thorkell, two Norse chiefs who had come over to 
conquer Scotland. 

5. Macbeth had wedded a lady named Grnoch Mac- 
Boedhe, which made him cousin to the king, and very 
likely put strange notions into his head, even if they never 
were there before. He was what we call " a rising man," 
and so, liaving gloriously defeated Thorlinn and Thorkell, 
or, some say, making them allies, he gloriously turned 
around and made war upon Duncan MacCrinan. In this 
struggle Duncan was killed or mortally wounded near 
Elgin, on Moray Firth, and Macbeth usurped the throne. 

6. Others claim that Thorfinn had conquered that 
part of Scotland, that Macbeth was his vassal and mere- 
ly fulfilled his duty to his over-lord in repelling an inva- 
sion by Duncan, in w^hich the latter deservedly met the 
common fate of war. 

7. It is very difficult to learn the real truth about peo- 
ple who lived before history was anything more than oral 
tradition, because, as in the case of Macbeth, a great many 
legends gradually clustered about their names, which were 
not committed to writing until many, many years alter 
the events actually occurred. The very earliest Scotch 
writing ever discovered is only a charter, and is dated 
1095, more than fifty years after Duncan was ''in his 
grave," and it was more than three hundred years later 
that a Scotch prior, named Androwe of Wyntonne, wrote 
a long historical poem which he called an Orygynale 
Cronykil of Scotland. In it he relates the story of Mac- 
beth and the three witches, and the murder of Duncan, 
though he says that Macbeth afterward made a very wise 
and just king, whose reign of seventeen years was marked 
by great abundance, and by royal almsgiving and zeal for 
''holy kirk." 

8. But a Latin history of Scotland, written about a 



208 S2 0RIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

huEdred years before Shakespeare by an Aberdeen pro- 
fessor, and translated into English under the title of Hol- 
inshed's Chronicle, supplied the great dramatist with his 
plot, though it suited his purpose to combine the true 
story of Macbeth with the murder of an earlier king. 
Then, adding a great deal about ghosts and witches, and, 
above all, breathing into these dry, long-dead mummies 
the quickening breath of genius, the immortal playwright 
recreated a Macbeth who seems a far more real and liv- 
ing character than many of our contemporaries. 

9. By whatever means Macbeth secured the throne, 
history and iiction agree as to the manner of his losing it. 
Duncan's sons, in reality mere infants at their father's 
death, were hurried away by their friends, and Malcolm, 
the elder, was committed to his mother's brother. Si ward, 
Earl of Northumbria, who in good time aided his young 
kinsman to recover his birthright. 

10. Macbeth, notwithstanding his prosperous reign, was 
regarded as a usurper, and was consequently very unpopu- 
lar with the loyal Scotch, who, though proud and quar- 
relsome, were always devotedly true where they recog- 
nized an obligation of fealty. So when Malcolm returned 
they flocked around the beloved young heir, and defeated 
his enemy at Dmisinane, though Macbeth was not killed 
at this place, as Shakespeare says, but fled across the 
Grampians to rally at Lumphanan. Here he was slain 
and the victorious Malcolm — called in history Malcolm 
Canmore — now went to Scone and was crowned upon a 
famous stone, believed by the Scotch to be the same that 
Jacob used for his pillow. It is certainly the one that 
Edward I of England afterward took away and made the 
seat of the coronation chair at Westminster Abbey, where 
it is still to be seen. 

11. But, like many another evil that has been wrought 



WESTERN RECORD. 209 

before now, Macbeth's treason resulted in the ultimate 
good of bis country ; for Malcolm, during his long exile, 
had become accustomed to the superior civiUzation of the 
EngUsh, and now introduced many improvements among 
his subjects. Having known, too, the sorrows of a fugi- 
tive, he welcomed to his court the Saxon princes fleeing 
from Gorman William, among whom was Margaret Athei- 
ing, the gentle granddaughter of Ednmnd Ironsides, who 
became his bride, and whose winning graces went far 
toward refining the rude manners of the warlike Scots. 
One of their sons was the saintly King David, who found- 
ed Melrose Abbey, and who is said to have been to Scot- 
land " all that Alfred was to England, and more than 
Louis was to France." 

12. Another noble, called Banquo, seems to have had 
some part in Duncan's overthrow, but as the play of 
Macbeth was written in the reign of James I, who was a 
Scot and traced his descent back to Banquo, it was not 
deemed prudent or polite to represent the character in an 
unflattering light ; so he was pictured as noble and incor- 
ruptible, and was so unfortunate, poor man, as to have to 
be murdered to make the story end well. 

13. Sir Walter Scott, in his " Tales of a Grandfather," 
gives us a story differing little from the outline of Shake- 
speare's drama, but then, who that has spent enraptured 
hours over Rob Roy and the Black Dwarf could wish the 
charming wizard to spoil a good story for the sake of 
mere historical exactness ? not I, surely ! And the Mac- 
beth of history, no matter how zealously we may try to 
discover him, or how faithfully we may attempt, at this 
late day, to reconstruct his damaged reputation, he can 
never be to us anything better than a very misty tra- 
dition. Whatever he may have been eight hundred 
years ago, the Macbeth we know, the only real Macbeth 



210 STOEIES OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 

there is or ever can be, is after all the one that met the 
witches in the thunder-storm on Forres Heath and then 
went home and murdered the gentle old king who " had 
so much blood in him," and a moment later, startled bj 
the knocking at the gate, exclaimed in bitterest remorse : 
*' Wake Duncan wdth thy knocking! I would thou 
could'st ! " 

14. If you read this scene in the silent hours when 
every one else in the house is sleeping, you will almost 
believe that you murdered Duncan yourself, and that you 
hear Lady Macbeth's hoarse whisper in your ear : " To 
bed, to bed, there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, 
come, come, give me your hand. What's done can not 
be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed." 

15. Then you will shut the book in sudden terror of 
the lonely midnight, and scramble into bed wdth the 
blood curdling in your veins, and presently, aided by the 
darkness, your imagination will bridge the gulf of cent- 
uries, and you will seem to see a long vaulted hall in a 
mediseval palace, and in the hall a banquet spread, around 
which gather lords of high degree, while on the canopied 
dais at the upper end sit King Macbeth and his white- 
haired, pitiless, guilty queen. And from the rainy outer 
darkness you may catch the faint echo of a mortal cry : 
" Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly ! " And then as you pict- 
ure the king stepping down from his royal seat to meet 
a blood-stained murderer at the door, you will have a mo- 
mentary glimpse of Banquo lying in the roadside ditch 
'' with twenty trenched gashes in his head," and of Fle- 
ance speeding away alone through the stormy night. 



WESTERN RECORD. 211 

XL.- DUKE WILLIAM OF JYORMAJ^DY^ 

1. Now Duke William was in his park at Ronen, 
and in liis bands he held a bow ready strung, for he was 
going hunting, and many knights and squires with him. 
And behold, there came to the gate a messenger from 
England ; and he went straight to the duke and drew 
him aside, and told him secretly how King Edward's life 
had come to an end, and Harold had been made king in 
his stead. And when the duke had heard the tidings, 
and understood all that was come to pass, those that 
looked upon him perceived that he was greatly enraged, 
for he forsook the chase, and went in silence, speaking no 
word to any man, clasping and unclasping his cloak, 
neither dared any man speak to him ; bnt he crossed 
over the Seine in a boat, and went to his hall, and sat 
down on a bench ; and he covered his face with his mantle, 
and leaned down his head, and there he abode, turning 
about restlessly for one hour after another in gloomy 
thought. And none dared speak a word to him, but they 
spake to one another, saying: "What ails the duke? 
Why bears he such a mien ? " 

2. " That is it that troubles me," said the duke. " I 
grieve because Edward is dead, and that Harold has done 
me a wrong; for he has taken my kingdom who was 
bound to me by oath and promise." To these words an- 
swered Fitz-Osbern the bold : " Sir, tarry not, but make 
ready with speed to avenge yourself on Harold, who has 
been disloyal to you ; for if you lack not courage, there 
will be left no land to Harold. Summon all whom you 
ma}' summon, cross the sea and seize his lands ; for no 
brave man should begin a matter and not carry it on to 
the end." 

3. Then William sent messengers to Harold to call 



212 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

upon him to keep the oath that he had sworn ; but Har- 
old replied in scorn that he would not marry his 
daughter, nor give up his land to him. And William 
sent to him his defiance ; but Harold answered that he 
feared him not, and he drove all the Xormans out of the 
land, with their wives and children, for King Edward had 
given them lands and castles, but Harold chased them out 
of the country ; neither would he let one remain. And 
at Christmas he took the crown, but it would have been 
w^ell for himself and his land if he had not been crowned, 
since for the kingdom he perjured himself, and his reign 
lasted but a short space. 

4. Then Duke William called together his barons, 
and told them all his will, and how Harold had wronged 
him, and that he would cross the sea and revenge himself ; 
but without their aid he could not gather men enough, 
nor a large navy ; therefore, he would know of each one 
of them how many men and ships he would bring. And 
they prayed for leave to take counsel together, and the 
duke granted their request. And their deliberations 
lasted long, for many complained that their burdens were 
heavy, and some said that they would bring ships and 
cross the sea wdth the duke, and others said they w^ould 
not go, for they were in debt and poor. Thus some 
would and some would not, and there ^vas great conten- 
tion between them. 

5. Then Fitz-Osbern came to them and said: "Where- 
fore dispute you, sirs ? Ye should not fail your natural 
lord when he goes seeking honors. Ye owe him service 
for your fiefs, and where ye owe service ye should serve 
with all your power. Ask not delay, nor wait until he 
prays you ; but go before, and offer him more than you 
can do. Let him not lament that his enterprise failed 
for your remissness." But they answ^ered : " Sir, we fear 



WESTERN RECORD, 213 

tlie sea, and we owe no service across the sea. Speak for 
us, we pray you, and answer in our stead. Say what you 
will, and we will abide by your words." " Will ye all 
leave yourselves to me ? " he said. And each one an- 
swered : '' Yes. Let us go to tlie duke, and you shall 
speak for us." 

C. And Fitz-Osbern turned himself about and went 
before him to the duke, and spoke for them, and he said : 
" Sir, no lord has such men as you have, and who will 
do so much for their lord's honor, and you ought to love 
and keep them well. For you they say tbey would be 
drowned in the sea or thrown into the fire. You may 
trust them well, for tliey have served you long and fol- 
lowed you at great cost. And if they have done well, 
they will do better ; for they will pass the sea with j ou, 
and will double their service. For he who should bring 
twenty knights will gladly bring forty, and lie who should 
serve you thirty will bring sixty, and he from whom one 
hundred is due will willingly bring two hundred. And 
I, in loving loyalty, will bring in my lord's business sixty 
ships, well arrayed and laden with fighting men." 

7. But the barons marveled at him, and murmured 
aloud at the words that he spake and the promises he 
made, for which they had given him no warrant. And 
many contradicted him, and there arose a noise and loud 
disturbance among them; for they feared that if they 
doubled their service it would become a custom, and be 
turned into a feudal right. And the noise and outcry 
became so great that a man could not hear what his fel- 
low said. Then the duke went aside, for the noise dis- 
pleased him, and sent for the barons one by one, and 
spoke to each one of the greatness of the enterprise, and 
that if they would double their service, and do freely 
more than their due, it should be well for them, and that 



214: STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

he would, never make it a custom, nor require of tliem 
any service more than was the usage of the country, and 
such as their ancestors had paid to their lord. Then each 
one said he would do it, and he told how many ships he 
would bring, and the duke had them all written down in 
brief. Bishop Odo, his brother, brought him forty ships, 
and the Bishop of Le Mans prepared thirty, witli their 
mariners and pilots. And the duke prayed his neighbors 
of Brittany, Anjou, and Maine, Ponthieu, and Boulogne, 
to aid him in this business ; and he promised them lands 
if England were conquered, and rich gifts and large pay. 
Thus from all sides came soldiers to him. 

8. Then he showed the matter to his lord the King of 
France, and he sought him at St. Germer, and found him 
there ; and he said that he would aid him, so that by his 
aid he won his right, he would hold England from him 
and serve him for it. But the king answered that he 
would not aid him, neither with his will should he pass 
the sea ; for the French prayed him not to aid him, say- 
ing he was too strong already, and that if he let him add 
riches from over the sea to his lands of Normandy and all 
his good kniglits, there would never be peace. "And 
when England shall be conquered," said they, '' you will 
hear no more of his service. He pays little service now, 
but then it will be less. The more he has, the less he 
will do." 

9. So the duke took leave of the king, and came away 
in a rage, saying : " Sir, I go to do the best I can, and if 
God will that I gain my right you shall see me no more 
but for evil. And if I fail, and the English can defend 
themselves, my children shall inherit my lands, and thou 
shalt not conquer them. Living or dead, I fear no men- 
ace ! " 

10. Then the duke sent to Rome clerks that were 



WESTERN RECORD. 215 

skilled in speech, and they told the Pope how Harold had 
sworn falsely, and that Duke William promised that if he 
conquered England he would hold it of St. Peter. And 
the Pope sent him a standard and a very precious ring, 
and underneath the stone there was, it is said, a hair of 
St. Peter's. And about that time there appeared a great 
star shining in the south with very long rays, such a star 
as is seen when a kingdom is about to have a new king. 
I have spoken with many men who saw it, and those who 
are cunning in the stars call it a comet. 

11. Then the duke called together carpenters and 
ship-builders, and in all the ports of J^ormandy there was 
sawing of planks and carrying of wood, spreading of sails 
and setting up of masts, with great labor and industry. 
Thus all the summer long and through the month of 
August they made ready the fleet and assembled the men ; 
for there w^as no knight in all the land, nor any good 
sergeant, nor archer, nor any peasant of good courage, of 
age to fight, whom the duke did not summon to go with 
him to England. 

12. When the ships were ready, they were anchored 
in the Somme at St. Yalery. And as the renown of the 
duke went abroad there came to him soldiers one by one 
or two by tw^o, and the duke kept them with him, and 
promised them much. And some asked for lands in 
England, and others pay and large gifts. But I will not 
write down what barons, knights, and soldiers the duke 
had in his company ; but I have heard my father say (I 
remember it well, though I was but a boy) that there 
were seven hundred ships, save four, when they left St. 
Yalery — ships, and boats, and little skiffs. But I found 
it written (I know not the truth) that there were three 
thousand ships carrying sails and masts. 

13. And at St. Yalery they tarried long for a favor- 

10 



216 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

able wind, and the barons grew weary with waiting ; and 
they prayed those of the convent to bring out to the camp 
the shrine of St. Yalery, and they came to it and prayed 
they might cross the sea, and they offered money till all 
the holy body was covered with it, and the same day 
there sprang up a favorable wind. Then the duke put a 
lantern on the mast of his ship, that the other ships might 
see it and keep their course near, and an ensign of gilded 
copper on the top ; and at the head of the ships, wliich 
mariners call the prow, there was a child made of copper 
holding a bow and arrow, and he had his face toward 
England, and seemed about to shoot. 

14. Thus the ships came to port, and they all arrived 
together and anchored together on the beach, and together 
they all disembarked. And it was near Hastings, and the 
ships lay side by side. And the good sailors and ser- 
geants and esquires sprang out, and cast anchor, and fast- 
ened the ships with ropes; and they brought out their 
shields and saddles, and led forth the horses. 

15. The archers were the first to come to land, every 
one with his bow and his quiver and arrows by his side, 
all shaven and dressed in short tunics, ready for battle 
and of good courage ; and they searched all the beach, 
but no armed man could they find. When they were 
issued forth, then came the knights in armor, with helmet 
laced and shield on neck, and together they came to the 
sand and mounted their war-horses ; and they had their 
swords at their sides, and rode with lances raised. The 
barons had their standards and the knights their pennons. 
After them came the carpenters, witli their axes in their 
hands and their tools hanging by their side. And when 
they came to the archers and to the knights they took 
counsel together, and brought wood from the ships and 
fastened it together with bolts and bars, and before the 



WESTERN' RECORD. 217 

evening was well come they had made themselves a strong 
fort. And they hghted fires and cooked food, and the 
duke and his barons and knights sat down to eat ; and 
they all ate and drank plentifully and rejoiced that they 
were come to land. 

16. When the duke came forth of his ship he fell on 
his hands to the ground, and there rose a great cry, for all 
said it was an evil sign ; but he cried aloud : '' Lords, I 
have seized the land with my two hands, and will never 
yield it. All is ours." Then a man ran to land and laid 
his hand upon a cottage, and took a handful of the thatch, 
and returned to the duke. " Sir," said he, '' take seizin 
of the land ; yours is the land without doubt." Then the 
duke commanded the mariners to draw all the ships to 
land and pierce holes in them and break them to pieces, 
for they should never return by the way they had come, 
" Belt and Spu?%'"' Stories of the Old Knights. 



XLL-THE J^ORMAJf COJVQUEST^ 

1. Poor old Edward the Confessor, holy, weak, and 
sad, lay in his new choir of Westminster — where the 
wicked cease from troubling and tlie weary are at rest. 
The crowned ascetic had left no heir behind. England 
seemed as a corpse, to which all the eagles might gather 
together ; and the South-English, in their utter need, had 
chosen for their king the ablest, and it may be the just- 
est, man in Britain — Earl Harold Godwinson : himself, 
like half the upper classes of England then, of all-domi- 
nant I^orse blood ; for his mother was a Danish princess. 

2. Then out of Norway, with a mighty host, came 



S18 



STORIES OF TEE OLDEN TIME. 




Edward the Confessor's Tomk 



WESTERN RECORD. 219 

Harold Hardraade, taller than all men, the ideal Viking 
of his time. He had been away to Russia to King Jaro- 
slaf ; he had been in the Emperor's Yaranger guard at 
Constantinople — and, it was whispered, had slain a lion 
there with his bare hands ; he had carved his name and 
his comrades' in Runic characters — if you go to Venice 
you may see them at this day — on the loins of the great 
marble lion, which stood in his time not in Venice but in 
Athens. And now. King of I^orway and conqueror, for 
the time, of Denmark, why should he not take England, 
as Sweyn and Canute took it sixty years before, when 
the flower of the English gentry perished at the fatal bat- 
tle of Assingdune 'i If he and his half -barbarous host had 
conquered, the civilization of Britain would have been 
thrown back, perhaps, for centuries. But it was not to be. 
3. England was to be conquered by the Normans ; 
but by the civilized, not the barbaric ; by the Norse who 
had settled, but four generations before, in the northeast 
of France under Rou, Rollo, Rolf the Ganger, so called, 
they say, because his legs w^ere so long that, when on 
horseback, he touched the ground and seemed to gang, or 
walk. He and his Norsemen had taken their share of 
France, and called it Normandy to this day ; and mean- 
while, with that docility and adaptability w^hich marks so 
often truly great spirits, they changed their creed, their 
language, their habits, and had become, from heathen 
and murderous Berserkers, the most truly civilized peo- 
ple in Europe, and — as was most natural then — the most 
faithful allies and servants of the Pope of Rome. So 
greatly had they changed, and so fast, that William Duke 
of Normandy, the great-great-grandson of Rolf the wild 
Viking, was perhaps the finest gentleman, as well as the 
most cultivated sovereign and the greatest statesman and 
warrior in Europe. 



220 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

4. So Harold of Norway canie with all his Yikings to 
Stamford Bridge by York ; and took, by coming, only 
that which Harold of England promised him, namely, 
"forasmuch as he was taller than any other man, seven 
feet of English gromid." 

5. The story of that great battle, told with a few in- 
accuracies, but as only great poets tell, yon should read, if 
you have not read it already, in the " Heimskringla " of 
Snorri Sturluson, the Homer of the IN'orth : 

High feast that day held the birds of the air 
and the beasts of the field, 

White-tailed erm and sallow glede. 

Dusky raven, with homy neb. 

And the gray deer the wolf of the wood. 
The bones of the slain, men say, whitened the place for 
fifty years to come. 

6. And remember that on the same day on which 
that fight befell— September 27, 1066— Wilham, Duke of 
N^ormandy, with all his French-speaking Norsemen, was 
sailing across the British Channel, under the protection 
of a banner consecrated by the Pope, to conquer that 
England which the Norse-speaking Normans could not 
conquer. 

7. And now King Harold showed himself a man. 
He turned at once from the north of England to the 
south. He raised the folk of the southern, as he had 
raised those of the central and northern shires ; and in 
sixteen days — after a march which in those times was a 
prodigious feat — he was intrenched upon the fatal down 
which men called Heathfield then, and Senlac, but Battle 
to this day — with William and his French Normans op- 
posite him on Telham Hill. 

8. Tlien came the battle of Hastings. You all know 
what befell upon that day, and how the old weapon was 



WESTERN RECORD. 221 

matclied against the new — the Enghsh axe against the 
lN"orman lance — and beaten only because the English 
broke their ranks. 

9. It was a fearful time which followed. I can not 
but believe that our forefathers had been, in some way or 
other, great sinners, or two such conquests as Canute's 
and William's would not have fallen on them within the 
short space of sixty years. They did not want for cour- 
age, as Stamford Brigg and Hastings showed full well. 
English swine, their Norman conquerors called them often 
enough, but never English cowards. 

10. Their ruinous vice, if we trust the records of the 
time, was what the old monks called accidia, and ranked 
it as one of the seven deadly sins : a general careless, 
sleepy, comfortable habit of mind, which lets all go its 
way for good or evil — a habit of mind too often accom- 
panied, as in the case of the Anglo-Danes, with self-in- 
dulgence, often coarse enough. Huge eaters and huger 
drinkers, f tiddled with ale, were the men w^ho went down 
at Hastings — though they went down like heroes — before 
the staid and sober E^orman out of France. 

11. But these were fearful times. As long as William 
lived, ruthless as he was to all rebels, he kept order and 
did justice with a strong and steady hand ; for he brought 
with him from Normandy the instincts of a truly great 
statesman. And in his sons' time matters grew worse and 
worse. After that, in the troubles of Stephen's reign, 
anarchy let loose tyranny in its most fearful form, and 
things were done which recall the cruelties of the old 
Spanish conquistador es in America. Scott's charming 
romance of " Ivanhoe " must be taken, I fear, as a too true 
picture of English society in the time of Bichard I. 

12. And what came of it all ? What was the result 
of all this misery and wrong ? This, paradoxical as it 



WESTERN RECORD. 223 

may seem : that the Korman conquest was the making of 
the English people ; of the free commons of England. 

13. Paradoxical, but true. First, you must dismiss 
from your minds the too common notion that there is 
now in England a governing J^orman aristocracy, or that 
there has been one, at least since the year 1215, when the 
Magna Charta was won from the Norman John by Nor- 
mans and by English alike. For the first victors at Hast- 
ings, like the first conquistador es in America, perished, as 
the monk chronicles point out, rapidly by their own 
crimes ; and very few of our nobility can trace their names 
back to the authentic Battle Abbey roll. 

14. The cause is plain : The conquest of England by 
the Normans was not one of those conquests of a savage 
by a civilized race, or of a cowardly race by a brave race, 
which results in the slavery of the conquered, and leaves 
the gulf of caste between two races — master and slave. 
The vast majority, all but the whole population of Eng- 
land, have always been free, and free as they are not 
when caste exists to change their occupations. They 
could intermarry, if they were able men, into the rank 
above them ; as they could sink, if they were unable men, 
into the rank below them. 

15. Nay, so utterly made up now is the old blood- 
feud between Norman and Englishman, between the de- 
scendants of those who conquered and those who were 
conquered, that, in the children of the Prince of Wales, 
after eight hundred years, the blood of William of Nor- 
mandy is mingled w^ith the blood of Harold, who fell at 
Hastings. And so, by the bitter woes which followed the 
Norman conquest was the whole population, Dane, Angle, 
and Saxon, earl and churl, freeman and slave, crushed 
and welded together into one homogeneous mass, made 
just and merciful toward each other by the most whole- 



224 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

some of all teachings, a community of sufiering ; and if 

tbej had been, as 1 fear they were, a lazy and a sensual 

people, were taught — 

That life is not as idle ore, 

But heated hot with burning fears, 

And bathed in baths of hissing tears, 

And battered with the strokes of doom 

To shape and use. 

Charles Ki 



XLIL-KIJVG RICHARD CCEUR BE LIOJV IJ^ 
THE HOLY LAJYD. 

1. At the end of August, 1191, Richard led his cru- 
sading troops from Acre into the midst of the wilderness 
of Mount Carmel, where their sufferings were terrible ; 
the rocky, sandy, and uneven ground was covered with 
bushes full of long, sharp ]3rickles, and swarms of noxious 
insects buzzed in the air, fevering the Europeans with 
their stings ; and in addition to these natural obstacles, 
multitudes of Arab horsemen harrassed them on every 
side, slaughtering every straggler who dropped behind 
from fatigue, and attacking them so unceasingly that it 
was remarked, that throughout their day's track there 
was not one space of four feet without an arrow sticking 
in the ground. Richard fought indefatigably, always in 
the van, and ready to reward the gallant exploits of his 
knights. A young knight who bore a white shield, in 
hopes of gaining some honorable bearing, so distinguished 
himself that Richard thus greeted him at the close of the 
day : " Maiden knight, you have borne yourself as a lion, 
and done the deed of six crusaders." 

2. At Arsaaf, on the 7th of September, a great battle 



226 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

was fought. Saladin and his brother had ahnost defeated 
the two religious orders (the Templars and the Hospital- 
lers), and the gallant French knight Jacques d'Avesne, 
after losing his leg by a stroke from a cimeter, fought 
bravely on, calling on the English king until he fell over- 
powered by numbers. Coeur de Lion and Guillaume des 
Barres retrieved the day, hewed down the enemy on all 
sides, and remained masters of the held. It is even said 
that Richard and Saladin met hand to hand, but this is 
uncertain. This victory opened the way to Joppa, where 
the crusaders spent the next month in the repair of the 
fortifications, while the Saracen forces lay at Ascalon. 

3. While here, Eichard often amused himself with 
hawking, and one day was asleep under a tree when he 
was aroused by the approach of a party of Saracens, and 
springing on his horse Frannelle, which had been taken 
at Cyprus, he rashly pursued them and fell into ao am- 
bush. Four knights were slain, and he would have been 
seized had not a Gascon knight named Guillaume des 
Parcelets called out that he himself was the Malak E,ik 
(great king), and allowed himself to be taken. Richard 
offered ten noble Saracens in exchange for this generous 
knight, whom Saladin restored together with a valuable 
horse that had been captured at the same time. A present 
of another Arab steed accompanied them ; but Richard's 
half-brother, William Longs word, insisted on trying the 
animal before the king should mount it. JN'o sooner was 
he on its back, than it dashed at once across the country, 
and before he could stop it he found himself in the midst 
of the enemy's camp. The two Saracen princes were ex- 
tremely shocked and distressed lest this should be sup- 
posed a trick, and instantly escorted Longsword back 
with a gift of three chargers, which proved to be more 
manageable. 



WESTERN RECORD. 227 

4. From Joppa the crusaders matched to Ramla, and 
thence, on New Year's Day, 1192, set out for Jerusalem 
through a country full of greater obstacles than they had 
yet encountered. They were too full of spirit to be dis- 
couraged until they came to Bethany, where the two 
Grand Masters represented to Richard the imprudence of 
laying siege to such fortifications as those of Jerusalem at 
such a season of the year, while Ascalon was ready in his 
rear for a post whence the enemy would attack him. 

5. He yielded, and retreated to Ascalon, which Saladin 
had ruined and abandoned, and began eagerly to repair 
the fortifications so as to be able to leave a garrison there. 
The soldiers grumbled, saying they had not come to Pal- 
estine to build Ascalon, but to conquer Jerusalem ; where- 
upon Eichard set the examj^le of himself carrying stones, 
and called on Leopold, the Duke of Austria, to do the 
same. The sulky reply, " He was not the son of a ma- 
son," so irritated Richard, that he struck him a blow; 
Leopold straightway quitted the army, and retui-ned to 
Austria. 

6. It was not without great grief and many struggles 
that Coeur de Lion finally gave up his hopes of taking 
Jerusalem. He again advanced as far as Bethany ; but a 
quarrel with Hugh of Burgundy, and the defection of 
the Austrians made it impossible for him to proceed, and 
he turned back to Ramla. While riding out with a party 
of knights, one of them called out, " Tiiis way, my lord, 
and you will see Jerusalem." " Alas ! " said Richard, 
hiding his face with his mantle, " those who are not 
worthy to win the Holy City are not worthy to behold 
it." He returned to Acre ; but there hearing that Sal- 
adin was besieging Joppa, he embarked his troops and 
sailed to its aid. 

7. The crescent (the standard of the Saracens) shone 



228 STORIES OF THE OLDEN- TIME. 

on its walls as he entered the harbor ; but while he looked 
on in dismay, he was hailed by a priest who had leaped 
into the sea and swum out to inform him that there was 
yet time to rescue the garrison, though the town was in 
the hands of the enemy. He hurried his vessel forward, 
leaped into the water breast-high, dashed upward on the 
shore, ordered his immediate followers to raise a bulwark 
of casks and beams to protect the landing of the rest, 
and rushing up a flight of steps, entered the city alone. 
'' St. George ! St. George ! " That cry dismayed the infi- 
dels, and those in the town to the number of three thou- 
sand fled in the utmost confusion, and were pursued for 
two miles by three knights who had been fortunate enough 
to find him. 

8. Richard pitched his tent outside the walls, and re- 
mained there with so few troops that all were contained 
in ten tents. Very early one morning, before the king 
was out of bed, a man rushed into his tent, crying out : 
"O king! we are all dead men!" Springing up, Rich- 
ard fiercely silenced him : " Peace ! or thou diest by my 
hand ! " Then, while hastily donning his suit of mail, he 
heard that the glitter of arms had been seen in the dis- 
tance, and in another moment the enemy were upon them, 
seven thousand in number. Richard had neither helmet 
nor shield, and only seventeen of his knights had horses ; 
but undaunted he drew up his little force in a compact 
body, the knights kneeling on one knee covered by their 
shields, their lances pointing outward, and between each 
pair an archer with an assistant to load his cross-bow ; and 
he stood in the midst encouraging them with his voice, and 
threatening to cut off the head of the first who turned to 
fly. In vain did the Saracens charge that mass of brave 
men, not one seventh of their number ; the shields and 
lances were impenetrable ; and without one forward step 



WESTERN RECORD. 229 

or one bolt from tlie cross-bows, their passive steadiness 
turned back wave after wave of the enemy. 

9. At last the king gave the word for the cross-bowmen 
to advance, while he, with the seventeen mounted knights 
charged, lance in rest. His curtal axe bore down all be- 
fore it, and he dashed like lightning from one part of the 
plain to another, with not a moment to smile at the op- 
portune gift from the polite Malek-el-Afdal, who, in the 
hottest of the fight, sent him two line horses, desiring him 
to use them in escaping from this dreadful peril. Little 
did the Saracen princes imagine that they would find him 
victorious, and that they would mount two more pursuers ! 

10. ^ext came a terrified fugitive with news that 
three thousand Saracens had entered Joppa! Richard 
summoned a few knights, and without a word to the rest 
galloped back into the city. The panic inspired by his 
presence instantly cleared the streets, and riding back, he 
again led his troops to the charge ; but such were the 
swarms of Saracens, that it was not till evening that the 
Christians could give themselves a moment's rest, or look 
round and feel that they had gained one of the most won- 
derful of victories. Since daybreak Richard had not laid 
aside his sword or axe, and his hand was all over blistered. 
No wonder that the terror of his name endured for centu- 
ries in Palestine, and that the Arab chided his starting 
horse with, " Dost think that yonder is the Malek Rik? " 
while the mother stilled her crying child by threats that 
the Malek Rik should take it. 

11. These violent exertions seriously injured Richard's 
health, and a low fever placed him in great danger, as 
well as several of his best knights. No command or per- 
suasion could induce the rest to commence any enterprise 
without him, and the tidings from Europe induced him 
to conclude a peace and return home. Malek-el-Afdal 



230 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

came to visit him, and a truce was signed for three years, 
three months, three weeks, three days, three hours, and 
three minutes, thus so quaintly arranged in accordance with 
some astrological views of the Saracens. Ascalon was to 
be demolished on condition that free access to Jerusalem 
was to be allowed to the pilgrims ; but Saladin would not 
restore the piece of the True Cross, as he was resolved 
not to conduce to what he considered idolatry. 

12. Richard sent notice that he was coming back with 
double his present force to effect the conquest, and the 
Sultan answered, that if the Holy City was to pass into 
Frank hands, none could be nobler than those of the 
Malek Rik. Fever and debility detained Richard a month 
longer at Joppa, during which time he sent the Bishop of 
Salisbury to carry his offerings to Jerusalem. The prelate 
was invited to the presence of Saladin, who spoke in high 
terms of Richard's courage, but censured his rash expo- 
sure of his own life. On October 9, 1193, Coeur de Lion 
took leave of Palestine, watching with tears its receding 
shores, as he exclaimed, " O, Holy Land, I commend thee 
and thy people unto God. May He grant me yet to re- 
turn to aid thee ! " 

Charlotte M. Yonge. 



XLIII-KIJfG JOHJ^ AJ^B THE CHARTER. 

1. On his return from the crusade Richard was taken 
prisoner by the Duke of Austria. He bought his release 
only to find King Philip attacking his French dominions, 
and to plunge into wearisome and indecisive wars, in the 
midst of which he was slain at the Castle of Chaluz. His 
brother John, who followed him on the throne, was a vile 



WESTERN RECORD. 231 

and weak ruler, under whom the great sovereignty built 
up by Henry II broke utterly down. Normandy, Maine, 
and Anjou were reft from him by Philip of France, and 
only Aquitaine remained to him on that side of the sea. 
In England his lust and oppression drove people and no- 
bles to join in resistance to him ; and their resistance 
found a great leader in the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
Stephen Langton. 

2. From the moment of his landing in England, Ste- 
phen Langton had taken up the constitutional position of 
the primate in upholding the old customs and rights of 
the realm against the personal despotism of the kings. 
As Anselm had withstood William the Ked, as Theobald 
had withstood Stephen, so Langton prepared to with- 
stand and rescue his country from the tyranny of John. 
He had already forced him to swear to observe the laws 
of Edward the Confessor, in other words the traditional 
liberties of the realm. AVhen the baronage refused to 
sail for Poitou, saying that they owed service to him in 
England, but not in foreign lands, he compelled the king 
to deal with them not by arms, but by process of law. 
But the work which he now undertook was far greater and 
weightier than this. The pledges of Henry the First had 
long been forgotten when the justiciar brought them to 
light, but Langton saw the vast importance of such a pre- 
cedent. At the close of the month he produced Henry's 
charter in a fresh gathering of barons at St. Paul's, and it 
was at once welcomed as a base for the needed reforms. 
From London Langton hastened to the king, whom he 
reached at ^Northampton on his way to attack the nobles 
of the north, and wrested from him a promise to bring 
his strife with them to legal judgment before assailing 
them in arms. 

3. With his enemies gathering abroad, John had 



232 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 

doubtless no wish to be entangled in a long quarrel at 
home, and the archbishop's mediation allowed him to 
withdraw with seeming dignity. After a demonstration 
therefore at Durham John marched hastily south again, 
and reached London in October. His justiciar Geoffry 
Fitz-Peter at once laid before him the claims of the Coun- 
cil of St. Alban's and St. Paul's, but the death of Geof- 
fry at this juncture freed him from the pressure which 
his minister was putting upon him. " Now, by God's feet," 
cried John, " I am for the first time king and lord of 
England," and he intrusted the vacant justiciarship to a 
Poitevin, Peter des Poches, the Bishop of Winchester, 
whose temper was in harmony with his own. But the 
death of GeofEry only called the archbishop to the front, 
and Langton at once demanded the king's assent to the 
charter of Henry the First. 

4. In seizing on this charter as a basis for national 
action, Langton showed a political ability of the highest 
order. The enthusiasm with which its recital was wel- 
comed showed the sagacity with which the archbishop 
had chosen his ground. From that moment the baronage 
was no longer drawn together in secret conspiracies by a 
sense of common wrong or a vague longing for common 
deliverance ; they were openly united in a definite claim 
of national freedom and national law. Secretly, and on 
the pretext of pilgrimage, the nobles met at St. Edmunds- 
bury, resolute to bear no longer with John's delays. If 
he refused to restore their liberties they swore to make 
war on him till he confirmed them by charter under the 
king's seal, and they parted to raise forces with the pur- 
pose of presenting their demands at Christmas. John, 
knowing nothing of the coming storm, pursued his policy 
of winning over the Church by granting it freedom of 
election, while he imbittered still more the strife with 



WESTERN RECORD. 233 

his nobles by demanding scutage '^ from tbe northern no- 
bles who had refused to follow him to Poitoii. But the 
barons were now ready to act, and early in January, in 
the memorable year 1215, they appeared in arms to lay, 
as they had planned, their demands before the king. 

5. John was taken by surprise. He asked for a truce 
till Easter-tide, and spent the interval in fevered efforts to 
avoid the blow. Again he offered freedom to the Church, 
and took vows as a crusader against whom war was a sac- 
rilege, while he called for a general oath of allegiance 
and fealty from the whole body of his subjects. But 
month after month only showed the king the uselessness 
of further resistance. Though Pandulf, the Pope's legate, 
was with him, his vassalage had as yet brought little fruit 
in the way of aid from Pome ; the commissioners whom 
he sent to plead his cause at the si lire courts brought back 
news that no man would help him against the charter 
that the barons claimed ; and his efforts to detach the 
clergy from the league of his opponents utterly failed. 
The nation was against the king. He was far indeed 
from being utterly deserted. His ministers still clung to 
him, men such as Geoffry de Lucy, Geoffry de Furnival, 
Thomas Basset, and William Briwere, statesmen trained 
in the administrative school of his father, and who, dis- 
sent as they might from John's mere oppression, still 
looked on the power of the crown as the one barrier 
against feudal anarchy ; and beside them stood some of 
the great nobles of royal blood. Earl William of Salisbury, 
his cousin Earl William of Warenne, and Henry, Earl of 
Cornwall, a grandson of Henry the First. With him too re- 
mained Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and the wisest and noblest 
of the barons, William Marshal, the elder Earl of Pem- 

* Scutage, or shield-money, was the commutation paid in lieu of mili- 
tary service by all who owed service to the king. 



234 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

broke. William Marshal had shared in the rising of the 
younger Henry against Henry II, and stood by him as he 
died ; he had shared in the overthrow of WilHam Long- 
champ, and in the outlawry of John. He was now an 
old man^ firm, as we shall see in his aftercourse, to recall 
the government to the path of freedom and law, but 
shrinking from a strife which might bring back the an- 
archy of Stephen's day, and looking for reforms rather in 
the bringing constitutional pressure to bear upon the king 
than in forcing them from him by arms. 

6. But cling as such men might to John, they clung 
to him rather as mediators than adherents. Their sym- 
pathies went with the demands of the barons when the 
delay which had been granted was over and the nobles 
again gathered in arms at Brackley in Northamptonshire 
to lay their claims before the king. Nothing marks more 
strongly the absolutely despotic idea of his sovereignty 
which John had formed than the passionate surprise 
which breaks out in his reply. " Why do they not ask 
for my kingdom ? " he cried. " I will never grant such 
liberties as wiU make me a slave I " The imperialist theo- 
ries of the lawyers of his father's court had done their 
work. Held at bay by the practical sense of Henry, they 
had told on the more headstrong nature of his sons. 
Richard and John both held with Glanvill that the will 
of the prince was the law of the land ; and to fetter that 
will by the customs and franchises which were embodied 
in the baron's claims seemed to John a monstrous usurpa- 
tion of his rights. 

7. But no imperialist theories had touched the minds 
of his people. The country rose as one man at his refusal. 
At the close of May, London threw open her gates to the 
forces of the barons, now arrayed under Robert Fitz Wal- 
ter as " Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church." 




King John and the Charter. 



236 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

Exeter and Lincoln followed the example of the capital ; 
promises of aid came from Scotland and Wales, the north- 
ern barons marched hastily under Eustace de Yesci to 
join their comrades in London. Even the nobles who had 
as yet clung to the king, but whose hopes of conciliation 
were blasted by his obstinacy, yielded at last to the sum- 
mons of the " Army of God." Pandulf, indeed, and Arch- 
bishop Langton still remained with John, but they coun- 
seled as Earl Ranulf and William Marshal counseled his 
acceptance of the charter. None, in fact, counseled its 
rejection save his new justiciar, the Poitevin Peter des 
Poches and other foreigners who knew the barons pur- 
posed driving them from the land. But even the num- 
ber of these was small ; there was a moment when John 
found himself with but seven knights at his back and be- 
fore him a nation in arms. Quick as he was, he had 
been taken utterly by surprise. It was in vain that in 
the short respite he had gained from Christmas to Easter, 
he had summoned mercenaries to his aid and appealed to 
his new suzerain, the Pope. Summons and appeal were 
alike too late, l^ursing wrath in his heart, John bowed 
to necessity, and called the barons to a conference on an 
island in the Thauies between Windsor and Staines, near 
a marshy meadow by the river-side, the meadow of Run- 
nymede. 

8. The king encamped on one bank of the river, the 
barons covered the flat of Punnymede on the other. 
Their delegates met on the 15th of July in the island be- 
tween them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to 
cover John's purpose of unconditional submission. The 
Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single 
day. 

John Richard Green. 



WESTERN RECORD. 237 



XLIV^-AJT EARLY ELECTION TO PARLIAMEJYT. 

The following preliminary sketch by J. R. Green, the historian, 
serves as an introduction to Palgrave's picture of an election under 
Edward I : 

"It was Edward the First, who first made laws in what has ever 
since been called Parliament. For this purpose he called on the 
shires and larger towns to choose men to ' represent ' them, or ap- 
pear in their stead in the Great Council ; the shires sending knights 
of the shire, the towns burgesses. These, added to the peers or high 
nobles and to the bishops, made up Parhament. 

"The business of Parliament was not only to make good laws for 
the realm, but to grant money to the king for the needs of the state 
in peace and war, and to authorize him to raise this money by taxes 
or subsidies from his subjects. So at first people saw little of the 
great good of such Parliaments, but dreaded their calling together, 
because they brought taxes with them. Nor did men seek, as they 
do now, to be chosen members of Parliament, for the way thither 
was long and travel costly, and so they did their best not to be 
chosen, and when chosen had to be bound over under pain of heavy 
fines to serve in Parliament." 

1. During tlie last half -hour the suitors had been gath- 
ering round the shire-oak awaiting the arrival of the high 
officer whose duty it was to preside. ]^ot withstanding 
the size of the meeting, there was an evident system in the 
crowd. A considerable proportion of the throng consisted 
of little knots of husbandmen or churls, four or five of 
whom were generally standing together, each company 
seeming to compose a deputation. The churls might be 
easily distinguished by their dress, a long frock of coarse 
yet snow-white linen hanging down to the same length 
before and behind, and ornamented round the neck with 
broidery rudely executed in blue thread. They wore, in 
fact, the attire of the carter and plowman, a garb which 
was common enough in country parts about five-and- 
twenty years ago, but which will probably soon be recol- 



238 



STOBIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 



lected only as an ancient costume, cast away with all the 
other obsolete characteristics of merry old England. 



.A-S^C^X^-- 




An Earhj Eleetion to Parliament. 

2. These groups of peasantry w^re the representatives 
of their respective townships, the rural communes into 
which the whole realm was divided : and each had a 



WESTERN RECORD. 239 

species of chieftain or head-man in the person of an indi- 
vidual who, though it was evident that he belonged to the 
same rank in society, gave directions to the rest. Inter- 
spersed among the churls, though not confounded with 
them, were also very many well- clad persons, possessing 
an appearance of rustic respectability, who were also sub- 
jected to some kind of organization, being collected into 
sets of twelve men each, wlio were busily employed in 
confabulation among themselves. These were " the sworn 
centenary deputies" or jurors, the sworn men who an- 
swered for or represented the several hundreds. 

3. A third class of members of the shire court could 
be equally distinguished, proudly known by their gilt 
spurs and blazoned tabards as the provincial knighthood, 
and who, though thus honored, appeared to mix freely 
and affably in converse with the rest of the commons of 
the shire. 

4. A flourish of trumpets announced the approach of 
the high-sheriff', Sir Giles de Argentein, surrounded by 
his escort of javelin- men, tall yeomen, all arrayed in a 
uniform suit of livery, and accompanied, among others, 
by four knights, the coroners, who took cognizance of all 
pleas that concerned the king's rights within the county, 
and who, though they yielded precedence to the sheriff, 
were evidently considered to be almost of equal impor- 
tance with him. " My masters," said the sheriff to the 
assembled crowd, "even now hath the port-joye"^ of the 
chancery delivered to me certain most important writs of 
our sovereign lord the king, containing his Grace's high 
commands." At this time the chancellor, who might be 
designated as principal secretary of state for all depart- 
ments, was the great medium of communication between 
king and subject : whatever the sovereign had to ask or 

* The port-joye was the messenger of the chancellor. 
11 



240 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. ■ 

tell was usually asked or told by, or under, the directions 
of this high functionary. 

5. Now, although the gracious declarations which the 
chancellor was charged to deliver were much diversified 
in their form, yet, somehow or other, they all conveyed 
the same intent. Whether directing the preservation of 
peace or preparing for the prosecution of a war, whether 
announcing a royal birth or a royai death, the knighthood 
of the king's son or the marriage of the king's daughter, 
the mandates of our ancient kings invariably conclude 
with a request or a demand for money's worth or money. 

6. The present instance offered no exception to the 
general rule. King Edward, greeting his loving subjects, 
expatiated upon the miseries which the realm was likely 
to sustain by the invasion of the wicked, barbarous, and 
perfidious Scots. Chm-ch and state, he alleged, were in 
equal danger, and "inasmuch as that which concerneth all 
ought to be determined by the advice of all concerned, 
we have determined," continued the writ, " to hold our 
Parliament at Westminster in eight days from the feast 
of St. Hilary." The effect of the announcement was 
magical. Parliament ! Even before the second syllable 
of the word had been uttered, visions of aids and subsidies 
rose before the appalled multitude, grim shadows of as- 
sessors and collectors floated in the ambient air. 

7. Sir Gilbert Hastings instinctively plucked his purse 
out of his sleeve ; drawing the strings together, he twisted, 
and tied them in the course of half a minute of nervous 
agitation into a Gordian knot, which apparently defied any 
attempt to undo it, except by means practiced by the son 
of Ammon. The Abbot of Oseney forthwith guided his 
steed to the right about, and rode away from the meet- 
ing as fast as his horse could trot, turning the deafest of 
all deaf ears to the monitions which he received to stay. 



WESTERN RECORD. 241 

8. The slierifi and the other functionaries alone pre- 
served a tranquil but not a cheerful gravity, as Sir Giles 
commanded his clerk to read the whole of the writ, by 
which he was commanded '' to cause two knights to be 
elected for the shire ; and from every city within his 
bailiwick two citizens; and from every borough two bur- 
gesses — all of them of the more discreet and wiser sort ; 
and to cause them to come before the king in this Par- 
liament at the before-mentioned day and place, with full 
powers from their respective communities to perform and 
consent to such matters as by common counsel shall then 
and there be ordained ; and this you will in no wise omit, 
as you will answer at your peril." 

9. A momentary pause ensued. The main body of 
the suitors retreated from the high-sheriff, as though he 
had been a center of repulsion. After a short but vehe- 
ment conversation among themselves, one of the bettermost 
sort of yeomen, a gentleman farmer, if we may use the 
modern term, stepped forward and addressed Sir Giles : 
" Your worship well knows that we, your commons, are 
not bound to proceed to the election. You have no right 
to call upon us to interfere. So many of the earls and 
barons of the shire, the great men, who ought to take the 
main trouble, burthen, and business of the choice of the 
knights upon themselves, are absent now in the king's 
service, that we neither can nor dare proceed to nominate 
those who are to represent the county. Such slender folks 
as we have no concern in these weighty matters. How 
can we tell who are best qualilied to serve ? " 

10. "What of that, John Trafford?" said the sheriff. 
'^ Do you think that his Grace will allow his affairs to 
be delayed by excuses such as these? You suitors of 
the shire are as much bound and obliged to concur in 
the choice of the county members as any baron of the 



242 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

realm. Do your duty ; I command you in the king's 
name!" 

11. John Trafford had no help. Like a wise debater, 
he yielded to the pinch of the argument without confess- 
ing that he felt it ; and, having nmttered a few words to 
the sheriff, which might be considered as an assent, a long 
conference took place between him and some of his brother 
stewards, as well as with other suitors. During this con- 
fabulation several nods and winks of intelligence passed 
between Trafford and a well-mounted knight ; and while 
the former appeared to be settling the business with the 
suitors, the latter, who had been close to Sir Giles, con- 
tinued gradually backing and sidling away through the 
groups of shiresmen, and, just as he had got clear out of 
the ring, John Trafford declared, in a most sonorous voice, 
that the suitors had chosen Sir Richard de Fogeys as one 
of their representatives. 

12. The sheriff, who, keeping his eye fixed upon Sir 
Richard as he receded, had evidently suspected some 
manoeuvre, instantly ordered his bailiffs to secure the 
body of the member. " And," continued he with much 
vehemence, " Sir Richard must be forthwith committed 
to custody, unless he gives good bail — two substantial 
freeholders — that he will duly attend in his place among 
the commons on the first day of the session, according to 
the law and usage of Parliament." 

13. All tills, however, was more easily said than done. 
Before the verbal precept had proceeded from the lips of 
the sheriff, Sir Richard was galloping away at full speed 
across the fields. Off dashed the bailiffs after the mem- 
ber, ainid the shouts of the surrounding crowd, who forgot 
all their grievances in the stimulus of the chase, which 
they contemplated with the perfect certainty of receiving 
some satisfaction by its termination ; whether by the es- 



WESTERN RECORD. 243 

cape of the fugitive, in which case their common enemy, 
the sheriff, would be hable to a heavy amercement ; * or 
by the capture of the knight, a result which would give 
them almost equal delight, by imposing a disagreeable 
and irksome duty upon an individual who was universally 
disliked, in consequence of his overbearing harshness and 
domestic tyranny. 

14. One of the two above-mentioned gratifications 
might be considered as certain. But, besides these, there 
was a third contingent amusement, by no means to be 
overlooked, namely, the chance that in the contest those 
respectable and intelligent functionaries, the sheriffs 
bailiffs, might somehow or another come to some kind of 
harm. In this charitable expectation the good men of the 
shii-e were not entirely disappointed. Bounding along 
the open fields, while the welkin resounded with the 
cheers of the spectators, the fleet courser of Sir Richard 
sliddered on the grass, then stumbled and fell down the 
sloping side of one of the many ancient British intrench- 
ments by which the plain was crossed, and, horse and 
rider rolling over, the latter was deposited quite at the 
bottom of the foss, unhurt, but much discomposed. 

15. Horse and rider were immediately on their re- 
spective legs again : the horse shook himseK, snorted, and 
was quite ready to start ; but Sir Richard had to regird 
his sword, and before he could remount, the bailiffs were 
close at him. Dick-o'-the-Gyves attempted to trip him 
up, John Catchpole seized him by the collar of his pour- 
point, t A scuffle ensued, during which the nags of the 
bailiffs slyly took the opportunity of emancipating them- 
selves from control. Distinctly seen from the moot-hill, 
the strife began and ended in a moment ; in what manner 
it had ended was declared without any further explana- 

* Fine. f Overcoat, or doublet. 



244 STORIES OF THE OLDEN- TIME. 

tion, when the officers rejoined the assembly, by Dick's 
limping gait and the closed eye of his companion. 

16. In the mean time Sir Eichard bad wholly disap- 
peared, and the special return made by the sheriff to the 
writ, which I translate from the original, will best eluci- 
date the bearing of the transaction : 

" Sir Richard de Fogeys, kniglit, duly elected by the 
shire, refused to find bail for his appearance in Parliament 
at the day and place within mentioned, and having griev- 
ously assaulted my bailiffs in contempt of the king, his 
crown, and dignity, and absconded to the Chiltern Hun- 
dreds *, into which liberty, not being shire-land or guild- 
able, I can not enter, I am unable to make any other exe- 
cution of the writ as far as he is concerned." 

17. At the j^resent day a nominal stewardship con- 
nected with the Chiltern Hundreds, called an office of 
profit under the crown, enables the member, by a species 
of juggle, to resign his seat. But it is not generally 
known that this ancient domain, which now affords the 
means of retreating out of the House of Commons, was in 
the fourteenth century employed as a sanctuary in which 
the knight of the shire took refuge in order to avoid be- 
ing dragged into Parliament against his will. Being a 
distinct jurisdiction, in which the sheriff had no control, 
and where he could not capture the county member, it 
enabled the recusant to baffle the process, at least until 

the short session had closed. 

Palgrave. 

* The district of the Chilterns, or line of chalk-hills to the east of Buck- 
inghamshire. 



WESTERN RECORD. 245 

XLV-THE BATTLE OF CEESST. 

1. Froirsart was a brilliant historian of the middle 
ages. His writings are in quaint old French. At the 
request of Henry YIII of England, a translation of his 
'' Battle of Cressy " was made into the English of that daj. 
We insert this as a most lively description of the battle 
itself, and as a specimen of old literature in which pupils 
can not fail to take great interest : 

2. Thenglysshmen who were in three batayls, lyeing 
on the grounde to rest them, assone as they saw the 
frenchmen approche, they rose upon their fete, fayre and 
easily, without any haste, and arranged their batayls : the 
first, which was the prince's batell, the archers then strode 
in the manner of a harrow, and the naen at armes in the 
botome of the batayle. 

3. Therle of ]^orthapton and therle of Arundell, 
with the second batell, were on a wyng in good order, 
redy to comfort the princes batayle, if nede w^ere. The 
lordes and knyghtes of France, cae not to the assemble 
togyder iu good order, for some came before, and some 
cae after, in such haste and yvell order, y* one of the dyd 
trouble another : when the french kyng sawe the englyssh- 
men, his blode chaunged, and sayde to his marshals, make 
the genowayes go on before, and begynne the batayle in 
the name of god and saynt Denyse ; ther were of the 
genowayse crosbowes, about a fiftene thousand, but they 
were so w^ery of goyng a fote that day, a six leages, 
armed with their crosl)Owes, that they sayde to their con- 
stables, we be not well ordered to fyght this day, for we 
be not in the case to do any great dede of armes, we have 
more nede of rest. These wordes came to the erle of 
Alanson, who sayd, a man is well at ease to be charged 
w* suche a sorte of rascalles, to be faynt and fayle now at 



246 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

moost nede. Also tlie same season there fell a great 
rayne, and a cljps, with a terryble thunder, and before 
the rayne, ther came fleying over both batayls, a great 
nombre of crowes, for feare of the tempest comynge. 

4. Than anone the eyre beganne to wax clere, and the 
Sonne to shyne fayre and bright, the which was right in 
the frenchmens eyen and on thenglysshmens backes. 
Whan the genowayes were assembled to-guyder, and be- 
gan to aproche, they made a great leape and crye, to 
abasshe thenglysshmen, but they stode styll, and styredde 
not for all that ; thans the genowayes agayue the seconde 
tyme made another leape, and a fell crye, and stepped for- 
ward a lytell, and thenglysshmen remeued not one fote ; 
thirdly agayne they leaj^t and cryed, and went forthe tyll 
they come within shotte ; thane they shotte feersly with 
their crosbowes; thun thenglysshe archers stept forthe 
one pase, and lette fly their arowes so hotly, and so thycke, 
that it semed snowe ; when the genowayes felte the 
arowes persynge through heeds, armes, and brestes, many 
of them cast downe their ci'osbowes, and dyde cutte their 
strynges, and retourned dysconfited. 

5. Whun the frenche kynge sawe them flye away, he 
sayd, slee these rascalles, for they shall lette and trouble 
us without reason : then ye shulde have sene the men of 
armes dasshe in among them, and kylled a great nombre 
of them ; and ever styll the englysshmen shot where as 
they sawe thyckest preace ; the sharpe arowes ranne into 
the men of armes, and into their horses, and many fell, 
horse and men, amoge the genowayes ; and when they 
were downe, they coude not relyve agayne, the preace 
was so thycke, that one overthrewe another. And also 
amonge the englysshmen there were certayne rascalles 
that went a fote, with great knyves, and they went in 
among the men of armes, and slewe and murdredde many 



WESTERN RECORD, 247 

as they lay on the grounde, both erles, baronnes, knjghtes 
and squjers, whereof the kynge of Englande was after 
dyspleased, for he had rather they had bene taken pris- 
oners. 

6. The valyant kyng of Behaygne, called Charles of 
Luzenbomge, sonne to the noble emperour Henry of 
Luzenbomge, for all that he was nyghe blynde, whun he 
understode the order of the batayle, he sayde to them 
about hyni, where is the lorde Charles my son 'i his men 
sayde, sir, we can not tell, we thynke he be fyghtjmge ; 
thun he sayde, sirs, ye ar my men, my companyons, and 
frendes in this journey. I requyre you bring me so farre 
forwarde, that I may stryke one stroke with my swerde ; 
they sayde they wolde do his commandement, and to the 
intent that they shulde not lese him in the prease, they 
tyed all their raynes of their bridelles eche to other, and 
sette the kynge before to accomplysshe his desyre, and so 
thei went on their ennemyes ; the lorde Charles of Be- 
haygne, his Sonne, who wrote hymselfe kyng of Behaygne, 
and bare the armes, he came in good order to the batayle, 
but whane he sawe that the matter went awrie on their 
partie, he departed, I can not tell yon whiche waye, the 
kynge his father was so farre forwarde that he strake a 
stroke with his swerde, ye and mo thnn foure, and fought 
valyuntly, and so dyde his compuny, and they advetured 
themselfe so forwarde, that they were ther all slayne, and 
the next day they were founde in the place about the 
kyng, and all their horses tyed eche to other. 

T. The erle of Alansone came to the batayle right ordy 
notlye, and fought with thenglysshmen ; and the erle of 
Flaunders also on his parte ; these two lordes with their 
copanyes wosted the englysshe archers, and came to the 
princes batayle, and there fought valiantly longe. The 
frenche kynge wolde fayne have come thyder whanne he 



248 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

saw their baners, but there was a great hedge of archers 
before hjin. The same day the frenche kynge hadde 
gyYen a great blacke courser to Sir John of Hejnault, 
and he made the lorde Johan of Fussels to ryde on hym, 
and to here his banerre ; the same horse tooke the bridell 
in the tethe, and brought hym through all the curronrs of 
the 'glysshmen, and as he wolde have retourned agayne, he 
fell in a great dyke, and was sore hurt, and had been ther 
deed, and his page had not ben, who followed him through 
all the batayls, and sawe where his maister lay in the dyke, 
and had none other lette but for his horse, far thenglyssh- 
men wolde uot yssue out of their batayle, for takyng of 
any prisiner; thane the page alyghted and relyved his 
maister, thun he went not backe agayn y® same way that 
they came, there was to many in his way. 

8. This batyle bytwene Broy and Cressy, this Satur- 
day was right cruell and fell, and many a feat of armes 
done, that came not to my knowledge ; in the night, dy- 
verse knyghtes and sqyers lost their maisters, and some- 
tyme came on thenglysshmen, who receyved them in such 
wyse, that they were ever iiighe slayne ; for there was 
none taken to mercy nor to raunsome, for so thenglyssh- 
men were determyned : in the mornyng the day of the ba- 
tayle, certayne frenchmen and almaygnes perforce opyned 
the archers of the princes batayle, and came and fought 
with the men of armes hande to hande : than the seconde 
batayle of thenglysshmen came to sucour the princes ba- 
tayle, the whiche was tyme, for they had as than moche ado ; 
and they with y^ prince sent a messanger to the kynge, 
who was on a lytell wyndmyll hyll ; thun the knyght sayd 
to tlie kyng, sir, therle of Warwyke, and tlierle of Cafort, 
Sir Reynolde Cobham, and other, suche as be about the 
prince your sonne, as feersly fought with all, and ar sore 
handled, wherefore they desyre you, that you and your ba- 



WESTERN RECORD. 249 

tajle wolle come and ayde them, for if the frenchmen en- 
crease, as they dout they woll, yonr sonne and they shall 
have much ado. 

9. Thun the kynge sayde, is my sonne deed or hurt, 
or on the yerthe felled ? no sir, quoth the knyght, but he 
is hardely matched, wherefore he hath nede of your ayde. 
Well, sayde the king, returne to him, and to thrm that 
sent you hyther, and say to them, that they sende no more 
to me for an adventure that falleth, as long as my son is 
alyve, and also say to the, that they sutfre hym this day 
to Wynne his spurres, for if god he pleased, 1 woll this 
journey be his, and the honoure therof, and to them that 
be aboute him. Thun the knyght returned agayn to the, 
and shewed the kynges wordes, the which gretly en- 
couraged them, and repoyned in that they had sende to 
the kynge as they dyd. Sir Godfray of Harecourt, wolde 
gladly that the erle of Harcourt, his brother, myghte have 
been saved, for he hurd say by the that he sawe his baner, 
howe that he was ther in the felde on the french partie, 
but Sir Godfray coude not come to hym betymes for he 
was slayne or he coude coe at hym, and so also was tlierle 
of Almare, his nephue. 

10. In another place the erle of A^leuson, and therle 
of Flaunders, fought valyantly, every lorde under his owne 
banere ; but finally they coude not resyst agaynt the 
payssance of thenglysshmen, and so ther they were also 
slayne, and dyvers knyghtes and sqyers, also therle of 
Lewes of Bloyes, nephue to the frenche kyng, and the 
duke of Lorayne, fought under their baners, but at last 
they were closed in among a copany of englysshmen and 
Welshmen, and were there slayed, for all their powers. 
Also there was slayne the erle of Ausser, therle of Saynt 
Poule, and many others. 

11. In the evenynge, the frenche kynge, who had lefte 



250 STORIES OF THE OLDER TIME. 

about hym no more than a tlirescore persons, one and 
other, whereof Sir John of Heynalt was one, who had 
remounted ones the kjnge, for his horse was slayne with 
an arowe, tha sayde to the kynge, sir, departe hense, for 
it is tyme, lese not yourselfe wylfuUy, if ye have losse at 
this tyme, ye shall recover it agaynt another season, and 
soo he took the kynge's horse by the brydell, and ledde 
hym away in a maner perforce ; than the kyng rode tyll 
he came to the castell of Eroy. The gate was closed, be- 
cause it was by that tyme darke ; than the kynge called 
the captayne, who came to the walles, and sayd. Who is 
that calleth there this tyme of night? than the kjmge 
sayde, open your gate quickly, for this is the fortune of 
Fraunce ; the captayne knewe than it was the kyng, and 
opyned the gate, and let downe the bridge ; than the 
kyng entred, and he had with hym but fyve baronnes. 
Sir Johan of Heynault, Sir Charles of Monmorency, the 
lorde of Beaureive, the lorde Dobegny, and the lorde of 
Mountfort ; the kynge wolde not tary there, but drake 
and departed thense about mydnyght, and so rode by 
suche guydes as knewe the country, tyll he came in the 
mornynge to Anyeuse, and then he rested. This Satur- 
day the englysshmen never departed for their batayls for 
chasynge of any man, but kept styll their felde, and ever 
defended themselfe agaynst all such as came to assay le 
them ; the batayle ended about evynsonge tyme. 



WESTERN RECORD. 251 



XLVI-THE BATTLE OF AGIXCOVRT^ 

1. Fair stood the wind for France 
When we our sails advance, 
Nor now to prove our cliance 

Longer will tarry ; 
^w\^ putting to the main, 
At Kaux, the mouth of Seine, 
With all his martial train. 

Landed King Harry. 

2. And taking many a fort, 
Furnish' d in warlike sort, 
March'd toward Agincourt 

In happy hour ; 
Skirmishing day by day 
With those that stop'd the way, 
Where the French gen'ral lay 

With all his power. 

3. Which in his height of pride, 
King Henry to deride, 

His ransom to provide 

To the king sending ; 
Which he neglects the while. 
As from a nation vile. 
Yet with an angry smile. 

Their fall portending. 

4. And turning to his men, 
Quoth our brave Henry then, 
Though they be one to ten. 

Be not amazed. 
Yet, have we well begun. 



252 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME, 

Battles so bravely won 
Have ever to the sun 
By fame been raised. 

5. And for myself, quoth he. 
This my full rest shall be, 
England ne'er mourn for me, 

iSlor more esteem me. 
Victor 1 will remain. 
Or on this earth lie slain, 
Never shall she sustain 

Loss to redeem me. 

6. Poictiers and Cressy tell, 
When most their pride did swell, 
Under our swords they fell, 

Ko less our skill is, 
Than when our grandsire great, 
Claiming the regal seat, 
By many a warlike feat, 

Lop'd the French lilies. 

7. The Duke of York so dread 
The eager vanward led ; 
With the main Henry sped 

Amongst his henchmen. 
Excester had the rear, 
A braver man not there ; 
O Lord, how hot they were 

On the false Frenchmen ! 

8. They now to hght are gone. 
Armor on armor shone. 
Drum now to drum did groan, 

To hear was wonder ; 



WESTERN RECORD. 253 

That with the cries they make, 
The very earth did shake, 
Trumpet to trumpet spake, 
Thunder to thunder. 

9. Well it thine age became, 
O noble Erpingham, 
Which did the signal aim 

To our hid forces ; 
When from a meadow by, 
Like a storm suddenly. 
The Enghsh archery 

Struck the French horses. 

10. With Spanish yew so strong, 
Arrows a cloth- yard long. 
That like to serpents stung, 

Piercing the weather ; 
ITone from his fellow starts. 
But playing manly parts. 
And, like true English hearts, 

Stuck close together. 

11. When down their bows they threw 
And forth their bilbows drew. 
And on the French they flew ; 

Not one was tardy. 
Arms from their shoulders sent. 
Scalps to the teeth were rent, 
Down the French peasants went, 

Our men were hardy. 

12. This while our noble king. 
His broadsword brandishing, 
Down the French host did ding. 
As to o'erwhehn it ; 



254 STORIES OF THE OLDEN TIME. 

And many a deep wound lent, 
His arms with blood besprent, 
And many a cruel dent 
Bruised his helmet. 

13. Glo'ster, that duke so good, 
^ext of the royal blood, 
For famous English stood. 

With his brave brother, 
Clarence, in steel so bright, 
Though but a maiden knight. 
Yet in that furious fight 

Scarce such another. 

14. Warwick in blood did wade, 
Oxford the foe invade. 
And crnel slaughter made, 

Still as they ran np ; 
Suffolk bis axe did ply, 
Beaumont and Willoughby ; 
Bore them right doughtily, 

Ferrers and Fanhope. 

15. Upon Saint Crispin's day 
Fought was this noble fray. 
Which fame did not delay 

To England to carry. 
O when shall Englishmen 
With snch acts fill a pen. 
Or England breed again 

Such a King Harry ? 

Michael Drayton. 



THE END. 



JOHONNOT'S WORKS. 



The Sentence and Word Book. 

A GUIDE TO WRITING, SPELLING, AND COMPOSITION BY 

THE WORD AND SENTENCE METHODS. By James JohOxNNOt. 

12mo. 184 pages. 

In teaching reading, those who practice tiie word and sentence methods have 
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A Geographical Reader. 

A COLLECTION OF GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTIONS AND 
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It is varied in style, and treats of every variety of geographical topic. 

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It is not simply a collection of dry statistics and outline descriptions, but vivid 
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It conforms to Wxa philosophic ideas upon which the new education is based. 

Its selections are from the best standard autho7ities. 

It is embellished with thirty-one beautiful and instructive illustrations. 

Principles and Practice of Teaching. 

By James Johonnot. 

Contents: T. Whnt is Education ; II. The Mental Powers: their Order of De- 
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or precede the series ? " 

[see next page.] 



APPLETONS' SCHOOL READERS.— {Corxi\mxQ±) 



Introductory Fourth Reader. 12rao. 

Designed for those pupils who have finished the Third Reader, and 
are yet too young or too immature to take up the Fourth. 

Appletons' Fourth Reader. 12mo. 248 pages. 

It is here that the student enters the domain of Hteratnre proper, and 
makes the acquaintance of the standard writers of " English undefiled " 
in their best style. Having received adequate preparation in the previous 
books, he is now ablo to appreciate as well as to assimilate the higher 
classics now before him. 

A new and invaluable feature in the editorship of this and the next 
volume is the " Pi-eparatory Notes " appended to each selection, for the 
aid of both teacher and pupil. 

The elocutionary work commenced in the Third Reader is continued 
and gradually advanced to the higher phases of the subject. Spelling- 
exercises are also appended, introducing " Words difficult to spell," with 
both phonic and what arc usually known as orthographic principles for- 
mulated into rules. Beautifully engraved full-page illustrations embellish 
the interior of the book, and render it artistically chaste and attractive. 

Appletons' Fifth Reader. 12mo. 471 pages. 

This Reader is the one to which the editors have given their choicest 
efforts. The elementary principles of the earlier volumes are not forgot- 
ten in this, but are subordinated to matters germane to more advanced 
teaching. The " Preparatory Notes " are more advanced than those of 
the preceding Reader, and seek to direct the mind more to style and the 
literary character, and lastly to the logical element of the thought. Liter- 
ary histor'^ and criticism are woven into the work in such way as to evoke 
thought -.nd inquiry in the mind of the young. Extracts are given from 
Webster, Jefferson, Irving, Audubon, Cooper, Emerson, Wirt, and Wash- 
ington, along witl others from De Quincey, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Byron, 
Shelley, Milton, Coleridge, and Shakespeare ; and with these is a vast 
amount of valuable information of every kind. It is, indeed, a text-book 
of bcUes-ktires, as well as of reading and spelling. Professor Bailey's 
lessons in elocution are fuller than in ] (receding volumes, and can probably 
not be equaled in the language for perspicuous brevity and completeness. 
All the departments f^'' recitation — the earnest and plain, the noble, the 
joyous, the sad — sarcasm, scorn, humor, passion, poetry — are given clearly 
and practically. The collection of " Unusual and Difficult Words " at the 
close comprises fifty-four lists of words which should always be kept iu 
mind by the student. 

D. APPLETON & GO., Publishers, 

HE.\N YORK, BOSTON, CHICAGO, ATLANTA, SAN FRANCISCO. 



APPLETONS' 

STANDARD GEOGRAPHIES. 



Comprehensive, Attractive, up to Date. 



THE SERIES: 

Appletons' Elementary Geography. 

This book treats the subject objectively, makes knowledge precede 
definitions, and presents facts in their logical connections, taking 
gradual steps from the known to the unknown. The work is designed 
to be elementary, not only in name and size, but also in the style 
and quality of its matter and development of the subject. The illus- 
trations have been selected with great care, and the maps are distinct, 
unencumbered with names, accurate, and attractive. 

Introduction price, 55 cents. 

Appletons' Higher Geography. 

This volume is not a repetition of the Elementary, either in its mat- 
ter or mode of developing the subject. In it the earth is viewed as a 
whole, and the great facts of political as depending on the physical 
geography are fully explained. Great prominence is given to com- 
merce and leading industries as the result of physical conditions. The 
maps challenge comparison in point of correctness, distinctness, and 
artistic finish. Special State editions, with large, beautiful maps and 
descriptive matter, supplied without additional expense. 

Introduction price, $1.25. 

Appletons* Physical Geography. 

The new Physical Geography stands unrivaled among text-books on 
the subject. Its list of authors includes such eminent scientific 
specialists as Quackenbos, Newberry, Hitchcock, Stevens, Gannett, 
Dall, Merriam, Britton, Lieutenant Stoney, George F. Kunz, and 
others, presenting an array of talent never before united in the mak- 
ing of a single text-book. 

Introduction price, $1.60. 

Specimen copies, for examination, will be sent, post-paid, to teachers and school- 
officers, on receipt of the introduction prices. 

Liberal terms made to schools for introduction and exchange. 



D. APPLETON & CO., PUBLISHEES, 
New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco. 



PRACTICAL AND PROGRESSIVE. 



APPLETONS' 
STAND ARD COPY -BOOKS. 

THE series: 

LEAD-PENCIL TRACING, three numbers, i, 2, and 3. 
(Writing taught three grades lower than in any other books.) 
INK TRACING, two numbers, i and 2. 

SHORT COURSE (without Tracing), seven numbers, i, 2, 

3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. 
GRAMMAR COURSE, ten numbers, i, 2, 3, 4, 4^, 5, 

6, and Exercise Books A, B, and C. 
BUSINESS FORMS, i, 2, and 3. 



SPECLiL FEATURES, 

The Lead-Pencil, Short, and Grammar Courses are independent 
of each other, and each is complete in itself. But progressive 
grading is maintained througliout, so that the Short Course is an 
advance upon the Lead- Pencil Course, and the Grammar upon the 
Short Course. 

Exercise-Books A, B, and C , make Movement practicable for public 
schools. Graded Exercise-Books A (pi'imary drill-book), B, and C 
(grammar grades, high-schools, and business colleges), contain a 
series of exercises calculated to train the muscles of the arm and 
hand, producing the true writing movement. Practical drills upon 
all possible combinations of letters. They are designed to supple- 
ment the regular writing-book. 

Business Forms, i, 2, and 3. contain all kinds of business and social 
forms, blank checks, receiots, etc., etc. Business forms and let- 
ters contained in these books are the joint product of some of the 
leading educators and business meu of this country. Designed 
for the upper grades, high-schools, and business colleges, these 
books are a valuable addition to our popular system, and a long 
step in the right direction. 



Teachers will find it to their interest to examine these books, and they are 
accordingly invited to correspond with the publishers. 

D. APPLETON & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco. 



A HISTOET OE THE 
IIHTED STATES AID ITS PEOPLE. 

FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. 

BY EDWARD EGGLESTON. 

Dr. Eggleston's new History of the United States is 
one of the most interesting and attractive school-books 
ever published. The author has used his art as a story- 
teller, and his experience as a writer, to make American 
history something living, human, and real, and therefore 
delightful. The illustrations have been secured from 
original sources, and the artists engaged upon the work 
include some of the most noted and expert in this country. 

CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Sept. 22, 1888. 

"Dr. Egg:leston has prepared not only a new American text-book, "but 
he has prepared it on a plan combining so many advantages that Americans 
many years out of school will find it delightful "reading, although primarily 
designed for school use. There is compacted in it a narrative of our develop- 
ment from the earliest times to the present. . . . Adorning and enlivening 
it are maps which keep pace with the story and make familiar by colors 
and drawings, specially contrived for episodes and epochs, all the surround- 
ings which fasten not merely events but their full significance on the mind. 
These maps are to be cordially commended. . . . The literary style of the 
book is worthy of its scholastic character. Edward Egdeston has long 
loved the function of the teacher. He has long pi-acticed the art of writing 
good English. Combining that spirit and this art, he ofibrs what will 
probably not be challenged a-^ the most pleasing, the most convenient, and 
the most fascinating popular text yet produced upon the subject that ought 
to be dearest to American youth." 

Introduction price, $1.05. 



Copies for examination mailed to teachers at the introduction price. 
Send jor specimen pages. 



D. APPLETON & CO., PUBLISHERS, 
New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco. 



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